Dye Star Apple

loureiriana: named after J. de Loureiro (1715-1796), Portuguese missionary and scientist, one of the first Europeans to collect plants in Subsaharan Africa.

Shrub or small tree. Bark grey to blackish, rough. Leaves crowded at the ends of branches, obovate to elliptic, 3-11 cm, leathery, glossy green, hairless or with hairs along the veins; margin entire. Flowers axillary in few-flowered clusters, white. Fruit fleshy, spherical, 1.5-2.5 cm in diameter, yellow, cupped in leaf-like lobes, c. 3 cm, often almost totally enclosing the fruit.

Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, just entering northeastern South Africa