Cat O' Nine Tails

karibaensis: of (Lake) Kariba in NW Zimbabwe

Soft-wooded, somewhat succulent small tree. Bark grey-green, smooth with lenticels; branches long and drooping or scrambling, reddish-brown; axillary tendrils often present, up to 12 cm long. Leaves almost circular in outline, up to 16 × 15 cm, very deeply 5-lobed, greyish-green, sometimes purple-tinged, leathery, with 2 glands at the base of the lamina; margin entire. Flowers before or with the young leaves, unisexual, greenish-white; male flowers in short branched heads; female flowers in few-flowered axillary clusters. Fruit, ellipsoid up to 2 × 1.5 cm, green with white mottling.

Zimbabwe: restricted to the escarpment along Lake Kariba and the Zambezi