Silky Plum

oppositifolia: with opposite leaves

Small to medium-sized tree, sometimes multi-stemmed. Bark flaking in sizeable pieces giving a mottled grey appearance. Leaves spirally arranged, paripinnate, up to 15 cm long, with 2-3 pairs of elliptic leaflets, up c. 10 × 4 cm, shiny green and hairless above, paler and minutely hairy below, leathery with midrib prominent on both sides, apex rounded, often notched; margin entire. Flowers in axillary, catkin-like racemes, greenish-cream, unisexual on the same tree. Fruit 1-3-lobed, c. 12 mm in diameter, velvety, green to red. Seeds 1 in each lobe, c. 1 cm in diameter, brown, enclosed in a olive-green to red aril.

South-eastern Zimbabwe and eastern Limpopo and Mpumalanga, South Africa. Subsp. oppositifolia is known from Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Reunion.