Cliffortia ruscifolia
L.
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(c) linkie, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by linkie
(c) linkie, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by linkie
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(c) Alex Lansdowne, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
(c) Alex Lansdowne, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
iNaturalist · cc-by-nc
(c) Heather and Andrew Hodgson, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
(c) Heather and Andrew Hodgson, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
What to Eat
Edible parts: Leaves - tea
The leaves are used to make tea drinks.
Where to Find It
It is a subtropical plant.
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 1.5 m tall. Leaves are clustered together. The leaves are simple. They are oblong to sword shaped and 10-12 mm long. They are hairy. Plants are separately male and female.
Wikipedia
Source ↗Cliffortia ruscifolia, the climber's friend, is a widespread species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae, native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa. A 1 to 1.5 m (3 to 5 ft) tall shrub with painfully sharp leaves, it is found growing on rocks and cliffs, and it is a pioneer species of disturbed areas. It is prone to hairy white galls of unknown cause.
Notes
It is rare.
Names & Synonyms
Cliffortia arachnoidea G. Lodd.
References (3)
- Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 94
- 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
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