Boscia oleoides
(Burch. ex DC.) Toelken
White-stem, Shepherd's tree, Coffee tree
(c) Craig Peter, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Craig Peter
(c) Craig Peter, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Craig Peter
(c) Craig Peter, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Craig Peter
What to Eat
Edible parts: Roots, Flower buds, Bark - coffee, Fruit
The roots are eaten as a famine food. The flower buds can be pickled in vinegar as capers. The bark from the roots is chopped and roasted as a coffee substitute. The fruit is also edible.
Where to Find It
It is a subtropical plant. It can grow in arid places.
Africa, South Africa, Southern Africa,
How to Identify
A shrub or tree. The flowers help distinguish this species from Boscia albitrunca. The leaves are hard and leathery. They are oblong and 2.5-5 cm long. They tend to be yellow-green. They have an easy to see midrib and are on short stalks. The leaves have small knobs near the base. The leaves are usually one after another along the branch. The flowers are small and star shaped. They have 2-4 petals. The flowers are usually at the ends of branches. They are yellow and have a strong sweet smell. The fruit is a smooth round berry. It can be 1.3 cm across.
Notes
There are 37 Boscia species.
Names & Synonyms
Bastard shepherd's tree, Witgat
References (7)
- Palgrave, K.C., 1996, Trees of Southern Africa. Struik Publishers. p 189
- Peters, C. R., O'Brien, E. M., and Drummond, R.B., 1992, Edible Wild plants of Sub-saharan Africa. Kew. p 76
- Plowes, N. J. & Taylor, F. W., 1997, The Processing of Indigenous Fruits and other Wildfoods of Southern Africa. in Smartt, L. & Haq. (Eds) Domestication, Production and Utilization of New Crops. ICUC p 186
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1999). Survey of Economic Plants for Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (SEPASAL) database. Published on the Internet; http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/ceb/sepasal/internet [Accessed 7th April 2011]
- Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 42
- Welcome, A. K. & Van Wyk, B.-E., 2019, An inventory and analysis of the food plants of southern Africa. South African Journal of Botany 122 (2019) 136–179
- World Checklist of Useful Plant Species 2020. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
