| DESCRIPTION: It is an often evergreen bushy tree usually 4-7 m in height, sometimes reaching 10-25 m. It is much branched with a cylindrical trunk. Crown is golden-green, deep and spreading with fine almost whorled branches. Bole is often rather angular and forked. Leaves opposite, simple, ovate or ovate elliptic, 6-20 x 3-10 cm, glossy and dark green. USE: It is a source of firewood and charcoal. Sap is used in the treatment of scabies and as an anthelmintic (tapeworms), while leaves are used as a remedy for hemorrhages, diarrhoea, gonorrhoea, sore throats, headaches and fevers. Resin from the flower stalks is believed to ease colic and to check infection after childbirth, while a decoction of the bark is drunk as a remedy for malaria or jaundice. Roots are used to hasten breast development in young women while roots and bark are boiled in water, and the infusion drunk twice a day, to interrupt the menses. Young leaves are sometimes used a medicine for asthma and fruits are occasionally used in cases of abortion in the belief that the red juice averts bleeding. GROWING PERIOD: Perennial. COMMON NAMES: blood tree, orange-milk tree. FURTHER INF: It occurs at medium to low altitudes in evergreen forest, at forest margins, clearings and along river and stream banks. It is a common and widely distributed tree from the Sudan to South Africa, often a pioneer when a forest has been cleared. The trees have a general brownish-yellow appearance in the field. |
