Cyclopia longifolia

Vogel

FabaceaeLeavesFlowersShootsSpice/Beverage
Cyclopia longifolia
iNaturalist · cc-by-nc
(c) Nick Helme, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Nick Helme
Cyclopia longifolia
iNaturalist · cc-by-nc
(c) wonderwalker, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

What to Eat

Edible parts: Leaves - tea, Stems - tea, Flowers - tea

The stems, leaves, and flowers are used to prepare tea drinks.

Where to Find It

It is a subtropical plant. In South Africa it grows between 300-360 m above sea level.

Africa, South Africa*, Southern Africa,

Countries: Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Benin, Botswana, Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, Congo (Republic), Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Comoros, Liberia, Lesotho, Libya, Morocco, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sao Tome & Principe, Eswatini, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe

How to Identify

A shrub. It grows 3 m tall. The leaves have 3 leaflets. The leaflets are narrowly sword shaped and curved at the edges. The flowers are bright yellow.

Notes

The name is ambiguous.

References (3)
  • Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 57
  • van Wyk, Ben-Erik, 2019, The diversity and multiple uses of southern African legumes. Australian Systematic Botany, 2019, 32, 519–546
  • 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

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