Blue Bark Commiphora

Deciduous tree. Bark smooth, distinctly pale bluish, peeling in papery translucent straw-coloured strips; young branches greyish, velvety, not spine-tipped. Leaves clustered, imparipinnate with 2-4 pairs of leaflets, more rarely 3-foliolate, both types together on the same tree; leaflets oblong-elliptic, up to 8 × 4.5 cm, greyish velvety below, hairless or with a few scattered hairs on the veins and midrib above; margin scalloped or finely toothed. Flowers small, greenish-yellow, solitary or in few-flowered clusters on the spur-branchlets, appearing with the very young leaves. Calyx and stalks densely covered in greyish hairs. Fruit subspherical, c. 1.5 cm in diameter, somewhat flattened, hairless. Pseudaril covering about 3/4 of the seed.

Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe