''Searsia chirindensis'' is a medium-sized, semi-deciduous, trifoliate

Southern African Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

tree of up to 10 m tall, rarely 20 m, often multi-stemmed, occurring along the coastal belt from the Cape, through

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 ...

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 ...

, Zimbabwe and Mozambique as far north as Tanzania, and growing in a wide variety of habitats such as open woodlands, in forests, along forest margins, in the open, among rocks and on mountain slopes. It was named by

Swynnerton Swynnerton is a village and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. It lies in the Borough of Stafford, and at the 2001 census had a population of 4,233, increasing to 4,453 at the 2011 Census. Swynnerton is listed in the Domesday Book identifyi ...

from a specimen collected by him near the

Chirinda Forest The Chirinda Forest Botanical Reserve is situated on the slopes of Mount Selinda, south of Chipinge, in the Chipinge Highlands of Manicaland, Zimbabwe, and is administered by the Forestry Commission. The reserve is situated at between in altit ...

in the

Chipinge District Chipinge District is a district in Manicaland Province of Zimbabwe. The administrative headquarters is Chipinge. Geography Chipinge District is the southernmost district in Manicaland province. It is bounded on the north by Chimanimani Distri ...

of Southern Rhodesia. This is one of more than a hundred southern African species in the genus. It is commonly known as red currant because of a fancied resemblance of the fruit to that of the European

redcurrant The redcurrant or red currant (''Ribes rubrum'') is a member of the genus ''Ribes'' in the gooseberry family. It is native to western Europe. The species is widely cultivated and has escaped into the wild in many regions. Description ''Ribes r ...

Traditional medicinal uses

Laboratory studies of bark extracts from this species show properties that may be useful in the treatment of convulsions and epilepsy, supporting its traditional use in ethnic medicine in some rural communities of South Africa.

References

External links

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Flora Zambesiaca
{{Taxonbar, from1=Q18078629, from2=Q7321559 chirindensis