Adenia globosa / 5 seeds

A dioecious shrub or climber, Adenia globosa forms a very messy thorny tangle of twisted stems. Its thorns are modified stems, spines are modified leaves and prickles are modified bark. This plant belongs to the same family as that of the well-known passion flower, i.e. passifloraceae. Adenia globosa is native to tropical Africa, and occurs in countries like Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. It’s called mpaga in Swahili.

Stems emerge from every point on caudex which is extraordinarily warty, and is hard, bumpy and green, and can grow even to a diameter of 2.5 m and 8 m in height when growing erect. But it can become globular in shape attaining a width of around 2 m. It looks like a large, bright green knobby stone. It contains a lot of moisture so as to allow the plant to flourish even in fiery hot weather and dry conditions. Branches can grow up to 8 m. They are strongly spiny, erect or scandent or sharply arching or prostrate and twisted.

The plant has strong thorns that are 2 to 8 cm long that is of equal length or longer than the internodes.

Flowers are greenish white and fruits are leathery smooth green. This plant is dioecious which means that male and female flowers bloom on separate plants. The lovely greenish flowers are either solitary or in cymes of up to 5 in the leaf axils. Male flowers are up to 2 cm long with 5 stamens, whereas female flowers are around 1 cm long with 3 styles.

The fruit of A. globosa is a green, leathery capsule in rounded or oval shape and is up to 3cm long. Adenia globosa is used in traditional African medicine for itching and abdominal pain. Massai people even use it as a medicine for their cattle. Its pilled bulbous part is also used to purify and clean dirty water.

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