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Pterolobium stellatum
Red Wing is a scrambling, thorny climbing shrub from dry tropical Africa and Arabia, valued for its cream, sweetly scented flowers and red seed pods. Give it full sun and well-drained soil, and prune to keep the rope-like stems in check.
Pterolobium stellatum (Latin: stellatum, starry or star-like, suggesting the radial arrangement of inflorescences), the redwing, is a perennial flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae.
It is the only member of the genus to occur in Africa, where it has an extensive but easterly range, from northern South Africa to Sudan, Ethiopia and on to Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula. They are found on rocky slopes and kopjes, riparian floodplains, or along forest margins.
The shrubs are planted to provide impenetrable live fences, and shoots are collected for livestock fodder. In Ethiopia an infusion of the pounded bark has been used as a component in tanning leather, while providing it with a red colour. The leaves contain 20% tannin and yield a dark red dye when crushed, which has been used in textiles, basketry and as an ingredient in black ink. The plant is employed in traditional medicine, though its medicinal properties have not been formally investigated.
Pterolobium densiflorum · Pterolobium hexapetalum · Pterolobium membranulaceum · Pterolobium microphyllum · Pterolobium punctatum · Red Wings
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pterolobium stellatum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
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.
