A shrub or small tree in the St John's-wort family (Hypericaceae), bearing purplish berry-like fruit.
Psorospermum corymbiferum (family Hypericaceae) is a shrub or small tree 2 to 5 metres tall, often with corky bark, and with stems densely covered in rusty hairs. Its leaves fall in the dry season. They are usually opposite, though not always, and up to 13 cm long, often much smaller, with many glandular dots. They range from almost hairless to densely rusty-hairy beneath. Its flowers, in clusters at the ends of the shoots, have petals up to 5 mm long, white with reddish markings, and the fruit is a red, purple or black berry. It grows in wooded grassland at 250 to 1,050 metres. Several former names, such as Psorospermum kerstingii and P. thompsonii, are now included in it.
Sources: PROTA4U database (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa), which compiles records from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de Genève, FAO EcoCrop and other botanical databases.
Root bark extracts have shown antifungal (anticandidal) activity in laboratory studies; a related species, Psorospermum febrifugum, is used traditionally for skin sores.
A wild shrub of savanna and forest margins.