Search
eco

Spiny monkey orange

Strychnos spinosa, the Natal orange, also called Mokotra in Madagascar, is a tree indigenous to tropical and subtropical Africa. It produces sweet-sour yellow fruits, containing numerous hard brown seeds. Greenish-white flowers grow in dense heads at the ends of branches. The fruits tend to appear only after good rains. It is related to the deadly Strychnos nux-vomica, which contains strychnine. The fruit are large, smooth, and firm, transitioning from green to yellow as they ripen. Inside the fruit are tightly packed seeds, which may be toxic, surrounded by a fleshy, brown, edible covering.

From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Research Mentions

mail

Weekly discoveries in your inbox

Get the week's most interesting plant science — one email, every Saturday. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

You'll get a confirmation email — check spam if you don't see it within 5 minutes.

Taxonomy

Scientific: Strychnos spinosa
Family: Loganiaceae
Genus: Strychnos
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Gentianales
Habit: shrub