| DESCRIPTION: It is a bushy shrub or well-formed tree up to 7 m in height. Bark light grey or brown, rather rough and longitudinally flaking. Leaves lanceolate to oblong; up to 28 x 10 cm, but usually about 10-15 x 4-5 cm. Leathery, medium to dark green. Fruit a small nutlet, with minute glands and bristly hairs on the body and a long tuft of bristly hairs at the top. USE: Leaves, although rather bitter to taste, are eaten as raw vegetables. ŒChewsticks‚ from the roots and twigs are regarded as an appetizer. Leaves and shoots used as fodder and wood used as timber, firewood and charcoal. An infusion from the roots is given to children suffering from infection by a trematode (Enterobius vermicularis). A cold infusion of the root bark, together with other plants, is given in daily doses to treat bilharzia. The bark and root are taken as a tonic by people suffering from fevers; leaves are also pounded, the juice extracted and drunk for fever. The leaves are pounded and mixed with warm water for bathing to treat spots on the skin and nausea. It can be planted for erosion control and as an ornamental. The termite-resistant branches are useful as stakes for lining out plantations and as a live fence. GROWING PERIOD: Perennial. COMMON NAMES: bitter leaf, vernonia tree. FURTHER INF: It can be found in Afro-mountain forest and secondary mountain evergreen bushland and sometimes forming clumps in upland wooded grassland. Elsewhere also in lowland humid rangeland, savannah and riverine fringes on light shallow soils, often associated with termite mounds. |