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.
Gymnosporia heterophylla
Also called Angular Stemmed Spikethorn, Common Spike Thorn, Common Spikethorn
Gymnosporia heterophylla, the common spike-thorn, is a small, hardy, deciduous African tree up to 5 m tall, occurring in rocky places with a wide distribution from Ethiopia, the Sudan and the Congo, south to the Cape Province and west to Angola and Namibia, as well as the neighbouring islands of Madagascar and Saint Helena, with a closely related species from Mauritius.
It has a straggly, but rigid habit and is armed with sharp straight thorns up to 100mm long, which are modified branches. Bark on the mature trunk is grey-brown and deeply fissured. The tree is dioecious, and clusters of white flowers are produced in profusion in spring and are borne on thicker twigs and branches. The flowers have a fetid, faecal smell and attract large numbers of pollinating insects, particularly carrion-loving flies such as members of the family Calliphoridae.
Gymnosporia addat · Gymnosporia arbutifolia · Willow Spike Thorn · Camassiwood · Gymnosporia cassinoides · Dhofar Spikethorn · Gymnosporia harenensis · Forest Maytenus · Gymnosporia pertinax · Maytenus senegalensis · Gymnosporia stylosa · Bell Spike Thorn
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gymnosporia heterophylla by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
