''Gymnosporia nemorosa'' is a spiny, somewhat sprawling evergreen shrub or small tree with drooping branches growing to some 5 m tall and found along forest edges in

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It ...

Eswatini Eswatini ( ; ss, eSwatini ), officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland ( ; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by Mozambique to its northeast and South Africa to its no ...

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

south to the

Garden Route The Garden Route (Afrikaans: ''Tuinroete'') is a stretch of the south-eastern coast of South Africa which extends from Witsand in the Western Cape to the border of Tsitsikamma Storms River in the Eastern Cape. The name comes from the verdant an ...

in the Southern Cape. In

Maputaland Maputaland is a natural region of Southern Africa. It is located in the northern part of the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa between Eswatini and the coast. In a wider sense it may also include the southernmost region of Mozambique. The bi ...

the species adopts the form of a geoxylic suffrutex or ‘underground’ tree, with shoots sprouting from its woody, underground

axis An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to: Mathematics * Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis *Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinate ...

. Its fragrant white, unisexual flower clusters grow in the axils of leaves on lateral shoots resembling spines. Dusky-pink, pear-shaped, pendulous fruits are about 15mm in length and the same in diameter, dehiscing along three longitudinal lines to produce 3 valves curling back from the distal end to reveal orange arils enclosing the seeds. Leaves are alternate or tufted, hairless, leathery, 25-50mm long, with slightly serrate margins, ovate to round in shape, glossy and dark green above, paler beneath, emarginate to acute, depressed apex. Branchlets are spiny and densely spotted with pale lenticels. Larvae of the African moth
Drepanogynis cambogiaria
' (Guenée, 1858) feed on this species and on other members of the

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 ...

. This is one of the species frequently browsed by

Black Rhino The black rhinoceros, black rhino or hook-lipped rhinoceros (''Diceros bicornis'') is a species of rhinoceros, native to eastern and southern Africa including Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania ...

in the Hluhluwe–iMfolozi Park.

Phytochemicals

Galactitol Galactitol (dulcitol) is a sugar alcohol, the reduction product of galactose. It has a slightly sweet taste. In people with galactokinase deficiency, a form of galactosemia, excess dulcitol forms in the lens of the eye leading to cataracts. Gala ...

β-amyrin The amyrins are three closely related natural chemical compounds of the triterpene class. They are designated α-amyrin (ursane skeleton), β-amyrin (oleanane skeleton) and δ-amyrin. Each is a pentacyclic triterpenol with the chemical formula C ...

Lupeol Lupeol is a pharmacologically active pentacyclic triterpenoid. It has several potential medicinal properties, like anticancer and anti-inflammatory activity. Natural occurrences Lupeol is found in a variety of plants, including mango, '' Acaci ...

derivatives,

Friedelin Friedelin is a triterpenoid chemical compound found in '' Azima tetracantha'', '' Orostachys japonica'', and ''Quercus stenophylla''. Friedelin is also found in the roots of the ''Cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in t ...

derivatives, Tingenone, 20-hydroxy-20-epi-tingenone'Chemotaxonomie der Pflanzen: Eine Übersicht über die Verbreitung und die systematische Bedeutung der Pflanzenstoffe, Band 9' - R. Hegnauer

Etymology

Nemus -oris = grove. cf.
nemoral
= 'pertaining to a wood or grove' and

Nemoralia The Nemoralia (also known as the Festival of Torches or Hecatean Ides) is a three-day festival originally celebrated by the ancient Romans on the Ides of August (August 13–15) in honor of the goddess Diana. Although the Nemoralia was originally ...

External links

Gallery at iSpot

Gallery

Maytenus nemorosa05.JPG, Lenticels Maytenus nemorosa06.JPG, New shoot Maytenus nemorosa08.JPG, Immature fruits Maytenus nemorosa12.JPG, Flowers Maytenus nemorosa16.jpg, First description from "Enumeratio Plantarum Africae Australis Extratropicae" - Ecklon & Zeyher (1835)

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q15341583, from2=Q15329827 nemorosa Geoxyles