Boat Fruit Plane

inermis: unarmed, without spines

Mostly a rounded shrub, rarely a small tree. Branches greyish to whitish, covered in white lenticels. Leaves broadly elliptic to almost round, up to c. 5 cm long; margin finely but sharply toothed. Flowers axillary on short side branchlets, solitary or in pairs, golden yellow, c. 2 cm in diameter, short-lived. Fruit 1-5 carpels, up to 10 × 7 mm, attached near the base, purple-black when ripe, surrounded by the pink to red, persistent sepals.

Northern population in Yemen, Eritrea, Ethiopia, nothern Kenya and Uganda; Southern population in Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, northern S Africa.