Common Poison Bush

Cultivated for medicine.

Shrubs to 5 m tall. Branchlets compressed when young, terete with age. Petiole 2-6 mm; leaf blade mostly obovate, occasionally elliptic, 4-10 X 2-7 cm, lateral veins 6-10 pairs. Inflorescences sessile or subsessile, clustered, glabrous or puberulent, usually many flowered; bracts brown or distal ones pinkish, ovate. Sepals ovate to very narrowly ovate. Corolla white to pink, tube 0.8-1.3 cm, glabrous or puberulent outside, hairy inside; lobes broadly ovate, 2-4.5 mm. Berry purplish black, globose, 2.5-3 cm in diam. Seeds semiglobose or semi-ellipsoid, 0.8-1.2 cm. 2n = 22.

Beijing [native of S Africa].

Cestrum oppositifolium Lamarck, Tabl. Encycl. 2: 5, t. 112, fig. 2. 1794.

oppositifolia: with opposite leaves

Shrub, sometimes a small tree, to 6 m. Leaves opposite, glabrous, smooth, usually obovate, sometimes elliptic; apex mucronate; lateral nerves reaching the margin without joining with other nerves. Inflorescence of dense axillary cymes. Calyx 2-3 mm. Corolla: tube 9-13.5 mm, pink or reddish; lobes 2-5 mm, white. Fruit 12-20 mm, a purple ellipsoid berry.

Locally frequent

DRC, Kenya and Tanzania southwards on eastern side of Africa to the Cape Province of S Africa

Acokanthera oppositifolia, the poison arrow tree, is a shrub used as the source of an arrow poison and to coat caltrops made from the sharp fruits of the puncture vine (Tribulus terrestris). All plants of the genus Acokanthera contain toxic cardiac glycosides strong enough to cause death. Acokanthera oppositifolia is widespread in southern and central Africa from Cape Province north to The Democratic Republic of the Congo + Tanzania.

Acokanthera schimperi is employed for the same purpose.

Unlike all other parts of the plant, the ripe fruit is sweet and edible. Unripe fruit are still poisonous, so only really ripe fruit are eaten.