Vangueria pygmaea
Schltr.
Hairy gousiemtebossie
(c) Andrew Hankey, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Andrew Hankey
What to Eat
Edible parts: Fruit
The fruit are eaten as a snack, especially by children.
Where to Find It
It is a tropical and subtropical plant. It grows in grassland and sandy soils and on termite mounds between 1,170-2,280 m above sea level. In Swaziland it grows in the high veld only.
Africa, East Africa, Eswatini, Malawi, South Africa, Southern Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
How to Identify
A small shrub. It has a woody rootstock and short irregular branches arise from this. The leaves are narrowly sword shaped and 11 cm long by 3 cm wide. They are more pale underneath. The leaves are crowded towards the ends of branches. The flower is a tube with barrow pointed lobes. The fruit is 2.5 cm across.
Wikipedia
Source ↗Vangueria pygmaea is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae.
Other Information
The fruit are especially eaten by children.
Names & Synonyms
Imyimandlebe, Mabilofasane, Mmilofasane, Mushisha, Umkhuna, Umkukuzela, Umvimbandlebe
References (9)
- Fowler, D. G., 2007, Zambian Plants: Their Vernacular Names and Uses. Kew. p 84 (As Pachystigma pygmaeum)
- Fox, F. W. & Young, M. E. N., 1982, Food from the Veld. Delta Books. p 323 (As Pachystigma pygmaeum)
- Long, C., 2005, Swaziland's Flora - siSwati names and Uses http://www.sntc.org.sz/flora/ (As Pachystigma pygmaeum)
- Mashile,S. P., et al, 2019, Indigenous fruit plants species of the Mapulana of Ehlanzeni district in Mpumalanga province, South Africa. South African Journal of Botany 122 (2019) 180–183
- Ogle & Grivetti, 1985, (As Pachystigma pygmaeum)
- Peters, C. R., O'Brien, E. M., and Drummond, R.B., 1992, Edible Wild plants of Sub-saharan Africa. Kew. p 172 (As Pachystigma pygmaeum)
- Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 97 (As Pachystigma pygmaeum)
- Swaziland's Flora Database http://www.sntc.org.sz/flora (As Pachystigma pygmaeum)
- 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 (As Pachystigma pygmaeum)
