''Gymnosporia buxifolia'' is a species of plant in the family

Celastraceae The Celastraceae (staff-vine or bittersweet) are a family of 97 genera and 1,350 species of herbs, vines, shrubs and small trees, belonging to the order Celastrales. The great majority of the genera are tropical, with only ''Celastrus'' (the staf ...

native to southern Africa. It is commonly known as the pioneer spike-thorn or common spike-thorn.

Description

''Gymnosporia buxifolia'' is a variable

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

Morphology

''Gymnosporia buxifolia'' grows up to 9 metres tall. It has light brown bark that darkens with age, eventually becoming flakey, rough, corky and fissured. It may be unarmed or armed with long straight spines. The leaves are green, slightly paler on underside,

glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin ''glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

, often borne clustered on very short dwarf spur-branchlets in the axils of the spines or infrequently on young spines or arranged spirally on new growth. The leaves are variable in shape, but typically narrowly obovate to oblanceolate, 25mm to 45mm long and 10mm to 25mm wide with a toothed margin, usually on the upper half of the leaf, sometimes

emarginate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

. Flowers are borne in heads, small, white with strong odour. The fruit is a more or less spherical, 3 lobed capsule, about 10mm diameter, green-yellow becoming grey-brown and wrinkled when dry. It grows in forests, scrub, grassland, woodland and riverine habitats.

Gallery

Gymnosporia buxifolia.JPG, Foliage and spikes Gymnosporia buxifolia, loof en blomknoppe, a, Schanskop.jpg, Flower buds Gymnosporia buxifolia, blomme, b, Faerie Glen NR.jpg, Flowering Gymnosporia buxifolia, vrugte, d, Pretoria.jpg, Fruit

Conservation

It is listed as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

in the Redlist of South African Plants.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q13035756 buxifolia Flora of South Africa