Vitellariopsis dispar (N.E.Br.) Aubrév.

Large shrub or small tree, up to 10 m high; vegetative parts soon glabrescent; branches light grey, usually rather rough and the younger ones marked in stretches with the scars of fallen leaves; ultimate twigs usually less than 10 cm long. Leaves oblanceolate-cuneate, or oblanceolate-obovate to obovate-oblong, drying green or yellowish-green above, paler and duller beneath, 2-7 cm long and 0.75-2.5 cm wide; petiole 3-8 mm long; blade with a very slightly reflexed margin, obtuse, subacute or shortly and bluntly acuminate, but not usually rounded at the top, gradually narrowing into the acute or acuminate-decurrent base. Flowers few to many (over 20) on one twig; bracts minute; pedicels rather slender, 1-16 mm long, buffy-brown tomentose. Calyx biseriate; outer sepals ovate-triangular, acute or subacute, buffy-green tomentose outside, with a whitish margin, greyish-tomentose inside near the tip, 5-6 mm long and about 3 mm wide; inner ones about as long and as wide as the outer ones, thinner in texture, ovate-oblong, more obtuse, greyish-pubescent outside with a slightly darker longitudinal streak in the middle, and inside at least in upper half. Corolla yellowish, glabrous; tube about 0.5 mm long; lobes and lateral appendages subequal, linear-lanceolate, acute or subobtuse, 5-6 mm long and 1-1.5 mm wide. Stamens: filaments 1.5-2 mm long, subulate from a broad flattened base; anthers ovate-lanceolate, acute, 2-3 mm long. Staminodes ovate-lanceolate, long-acuminate, concave, hairy on the back, about 3 mm long. Ovary subglobose, about 2 mm in diameter; style glabrous, 2-3 mm long, the apex sub-acute. Fruit green or yellowish-green, more or less densely covered with a short brown pubescence, ellipsoid or ovoid, apiculate, 2-3 cm long, 1.5-2.5 cm in diam.; pericarp thin, almost leathery when fresh. Seed pale brown, 2-2.5 m long and 1.5-2 cm in diam. with pale whitish scar.

It is a subtropical plant. It grows in savannah and along streams.

The fruit are eaten as a snack.