Trees to 12 m tall, sometimes armed with straight prickles, pubescent with stalked stellate hairs. Petiole 5-10 cm; leaf blade broadly ovate, 30 × 15-20 cm, scabrid with dispersed simple or stellate hairs adaxially, with sparse to dense, stalked stellate hairs and prickles abaxially, often with straight yellow or green prickles, base oblique, margin entire or sinuate-lobed, apex obtuse or acute. Inflorescences axillary or extra-axillary many-flowered racemes; peduncle mostly unbranched. Flowers showy, andromonoecious. Pedicel 0.6-1.5 cm, often leaving a conspicuous scar, with dense, bristlelike, long-stalked hairs. Calyx 1-1.5 cm, deeply lobed; lobes lanceolate, hispid with mostly simple hairs. Corolla opening deep purple, fading through blue to white over several days, 6-9 cm in diam., lobed ca. 1/3 way down, stellate hairy abaxially. Filaments 2-3 mm, glabrous; anthers oblong, apex narrowed, beaklike, 1.2-1.5 cm. Style dimorphic. Berry red, sometimes remaining green, globose, 3-4 cm in diam. Seeds lenticular, 2-3 mm in diam.
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A large shrub or small tree. It grows 8 m tall. The leaves have deep lobes. There are many flowers in a group. They are violet, deep purple or mauve. They are 6-8 m across. The fruit are red berries 4-5 cm across.
Very large, violet "potato-like" flowers up to 3 in. diam.
A large shrub or tree up to 20 ft. high
Cultivated at Njala, Sierra Leone.
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