The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Brexia is a genus of flowering plants assigned to the Celastraceae. It includes several species of dense evergreen shrubs or small trees of usually around 5 m high, with alternately set, simple, leathery leaves with a short leaf stem and lanceolate to inverted egg-shaped leaf blades. The pentamerous flowers occur in cymes. The petals are greenish white, the stamens are alternating with wide, incised staminodes. The superior ovary develops in a long-ribbed fruit. Brexia naturally grows on the coast of East Africa, on Madagascar, the Comoros and Seychelles. Opinions differ about the number of species in Brexia. Sometimes the genus is regarded monotypic, B. madagascariensis being a species with a large variability, but other authors distinguish as many as twelve species. Common names for B.
B. madagascariensis is a widespread species found in coastal areas in Madagascar (Sava, Atsinanana, Analanjirofo, Vatovavy-Fitovinany, Atsimo-Atsinanana, and Anosy regions), Mozambique, Tanzania (including Zanzibar), and Comoro Islands. The populations of Brexia that occur at higher elevations in the Seychelles are sometimes regarded as a distinct subspecies B. madagascariensis ssp. microcarpa, but others view it as a separate species B. microcarpa. All other putative species are endemics of Madagascar.
Fruits can be eaten raw as pulp when fully ripe. The wood can be used for spoons and tool handles, poles and yokes, but also provides fire wood and can be made into charcoal. A potion to treat stomach-ache can be produced by boiling the roots.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Brexia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
