Maesa lanceolata
species of Afrotropical tree
Maesa lanceolata, or the false assegai, is a tree species that is widespread in the Afrotropics, including Madagascar. It occurs from the southern Arabian Peninsula to the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It grows on stream verges, river banks and forest verges, where it is often a pioneer plant.
Description
Maesa lanceolata grows either as a shrub or tree, when growing as a tree, it is capable of reaching 10 m tall, but it has been observed to reach 20 m. It has a grey, brown to reddish brown bark that is vertically fissured, the slash is pink turning brown with a dark reddish exudate. Leaves are petiolate, with the petiole capable of reaching 4 cm long. Leaflets are elliptical to lanceolate in outline, they can reach 16 cm in length and 7 cm in width with a margin that tends to be either serrate to crenate; the apex is acute and base is rounded to obsute. Flowers are arranged in shortly pedunculate axillary panicles, they are numerous and white to yellowish in color.
The fruits are yellow in color and globose in shape, they contain up to 20 seeds.
Ecology
The yellow fruits of the species are consumed by the Yellow-whiskered greenbul and the olive-breasted mountain greenbul but can be toxic to humans.
The public source identifies “Maesa lanceolata” as species of Afrotropical tree. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Maesa, lanceolata and species.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q15326414. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maesa lanceolata” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.