Maboque/Monkey Orange—Strychnos spinosa

Abstract

Monkey orange is a small tree. The three main species are Strychnos cocculoides Backer; Strychnos spinosa Lam.; and Strychnos pungens Solereder Loganiaceae. The plant is from Southern Africa. The name monkey orange comes from the fact that the fruit is consumed by monkeys. The leaves are also consumed by herbivorous animals such as elephants. The tree is small, 1–7m in height, and bears edible, round shaped fruits, 6–12cm in diameter, which resemble an orange. Unripe fruits have a bright green wood peel (3–4mm thick), which turns yellow–brown upon ripening. The fruit has an edible, juicy, sweet–sour pulp, which is pale brown in color and contains many hard brown (1–3cm) seeds. The seeds may be poisonous. The fruit is almost unknown in the western world, but in Africa, the fruits are usually eaten fresh. Common names for the species are Spiny Monkey orange/Green Monkey Orange (in English), Doringklapper (in African), Morapa (North-Sotho), Muramba (Venda), um Kwakwa (Swaziland), Nsala (Tswana), Mutamba (Shona), and Maboque (Portuguese).