Commiphora merkeri Engl.

Spiny glabrous shrub or small tree up to 5 m. tall; trunk cylindrical; outer bark peeling from the dark green shiny under-bark in large pale yellow papery sheets which are fragile, not tough; oleo-resin copious, fluid with a strong fruity smell; young branches dark purplish, ultimate branchlets pendulous.. Leaves all simple, subsessile, rather hard, leathery and glossy, those on the long-shoots ± elliptic with 3–5 teeth along the distal 2/3 of the margin, those on short-shoots cuneate-obovate with teeth only on the distal third of the margin, up to 30 mm. long and 15 mm. wide.. Male flowers dull red, either solitary on pedicels ± 5 mm. long or 2–3 together with peduncle and pedicels each 5–6 mm. and bracts ± 1.5 mm. long; calyx ± 2.6 mm., including triangular lobes ± 0.6 mm. long; petals purplish red, linear, 5 mm. long; filaments 3.7 and 2 mm., anthers 0.9 and 0.6 mm. long.. Fruit on stalks 0.5–3 mm. long, always with only one fertile locule, 11 mm. long (including a 3 mm. beak) × 5.5 × (1.8 + 4) mm.; pericarp 2-valved; pseudaril with 4 irregular arms, that on the fertile face much wider than those on the sterile face and sutures; stone verruculose, 7.5 × 5 × (1.5 + 3) mm. with very large apical pits, and a well marked germination shield; sterile locule narrowly humped distally.. Fig. 5/14–17, p.25.