Strychnos usambarensis Gilg

Trees from about 2-15 m tall. Branchlets very slender, terete, young twigs with a thin white skin, splitting longitudinally and peeling, leaving dark coloured twigs with small lenticels; leaf-bases persistent, prominent, upturned. Leaves shiny dark green above, slightly lighter beneath, ovate-lanceolate, often folding longitudinally, acuminate in the upper half, 3.5-5.5 cm long and 1-2.5 cm broad, shortly cuneate to rounded at the base, acute at the apex, 3-nerved from near the base, sometimes 5-nerved but outer pair not distinct and often running into the margin, inner pair arising 2-4 mm above the base and running parallel with the margin and about 2-4 mm within it, tertiary veins not conspicuous; margin sometimes crisped; petiole about 6 mm long. Inflorescence a few-flowered compound cyme, more or less oblong in outline, about 1.5 cm long, peduncle and pedicels glabrous or very minutely and sparsely papillose pubescent; pedicels about 1.5 mm long; bracts cucullate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, about 1 mm long. Calyx faintly rugose without, more or less 1.5 mm long, 4-lobed almost to the base, lobes subovate usually acuminate, minutely ciliate on the margins, glabrous within. Corolla cream, tube about 1.5 mm long, sparsely bearded in the throat; lobes 4, about 2 mm long, minutely ciliate on the margins, glabrous within or a few pilose hairs at the base (part of beard), very minutely scaly within and without, upper half ultimately reflexed. Stamens inserted on the tube just below the sinuses; filaments about 0.5 mm long; anthers about 0.5 mm long. Ovary green, more or less oblong, about 1 mm long, 2-celled with several ovules in each cell, attenuate into a style about 1.5 mm long; stigma terminal, small. Fruit globose, about 1.4 cm diam., distinctly stipitate, stipe like a collar, about 1 mm long at the base of the fruit; seeds slightly compressed, attachment in the centre of the ventral surface.

It is a tropical plant. It grows in the lowlands and the highlands. It grows in rain-forest between sea level and 2,000 m above sea level.