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Sarcoca dodecandra
Also called African Soapberry, Pokeweed
Phytolacca dodecandra is a trailing shrub or climber from tropical and southern Africa and Madagascar, valued for its soap-like berries and fast growth. It is dioecious, so male and female flowers grow on separate plants, and fruit needs both sexes nearby.
Phytolacca dodecandra, commonly known as endod, gopo berry, or African soapberry, is a trailing shrub or climber native to Tropical Africa, Southern Africa, and Madagascar. It is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants. Morphologically, it is highly variable.
Endod (as it is known in Amharic or shibti in Tigrigna ) has been selected and cultivated by Africans for centuries, particularly in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is used as a soap and shampoo as well as a poison to stun fish. Endod is lethal to snails - a fact discovered by Ethiopian scientists - and may be effective controlling schistosomiasis. After Aklilu Lemma, an Ethiopian scientist, demonstrated endod's potency to American scientists, they took out a patent, hoping to sell endod as a biological control for the Zebra mussel, a pest in the Great Lakes of the US and Canada.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Phytolacca dodecandra 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.
