Treasure of the African forests

Unlike most grains and vegetables, fruits generally do not need cooking, making them most sought after especially by children. These wild fruits are Africa’s most nutritionally important resource, critical to everyone during their founding years.
Gathering fruit has been a routine of growing up throughout the millennia of our existence. In rural areas everywhere on earth, wild fruits contribute to nutrition and health during the most vulnerable period of hum-an life. During the crucial years when young bodies and brains are developing, wild fruits can provide the vital nutrition. This is important because children are malnutrition’s greatest victims.
Scavenging for fruits is exceptionally important to youngsters in the many cultures that prepare meals fewer than three times a day. Often, adults have neither time nor means to prepare suppl-ementary foods, so youngsters, whose small stomachs can barely hold enough to sustain the whole day need.
They rely on the fruits of the forests to fill the shortfall and carry them through.
The amounts consumed may rarely be large.           
 But even a few small fruits that are nutritionally dense can deliver big benefits when the rest of the diet is deficient in vitamins and minerals, which is especially the case when it is overly dependent on starchy staples.
I was amazed to see how young lads from my rural home have continued the hunting for different fruits from one tree to the other. Even during my childhood days, this was how we spent our days especially during the winter school holiday when household chores were not very demanding. First it was the mutohwe tree, where they picked one or two fruits that were ready for eating. They shared their find. The next pot of call was the Muchechete tree. Unfortunately here another group of youngsters had just passed-by and collected nearly all the ripe fruit but they still manage to scrounge something. Stereotypically, they heard for the next tree and this time it was the munhunguru tree.
Munhunguru is known as the governor’s plum in English and Umthunduluka in Ndebele.
Botanically known as Flacourtia indica, munhunguru is a tree or shrub usually 3-5 m tall, but can sometimes get to 10 metres. Its bark is usually pale, grey, and powdery and may become brown to dark grey and flaking, revealing pale orange patches. The leaves are red or pink when young and they vary in size but generally oval to round in shape. Their edges are toothed and leathery with 4-7 pairs of veins clear on both surfaces.
The flowers are in the majority of cases unisexual and occasionally bisexual with one or several branches of a female specimen with perfect flowers, which, however, bear fewer stamens than the males. The male flowers develop in auxiliary racemes while female flowers are on short racemes or solitary pedicles. The fruit is globular in shape. It starts off as green becoming reddish to reddish-black or purple when ripe. It is fleshy with up to 10seeds in each fruit.
The tree is usually leafless just before flowering. The flowers appear from December to April together with the new leaves, which are a very beautiful fresh green colour. It takes between 5-8 months from flowering until fruits are ready eating.
 Fruits ripen from March to July and they are very good to eat. The fruits are strongly attached to the tree so they are only picked from the tree at ripening.  They can be eaten raw or stewed.  Their taste resembles that of European plum but is slightly more acid and a little bitter too.  The fruits are suitable for processing as a jam or jelly. It also contains pectin which makes it excellent in making preservatives. Slightly unripe fruits are best for preservatives. Ripe fruits are often dried and stored as food and can be fermented to produce wine.
The fruit is a delicacy to birds, thus the seeds are widely dispersed, accounting for the very wide distribution of the species.
Munhunguru is a common in tropical dry deciduous and thorn forests. It also occurs in seasonally dry forest, woodland, bushland, thickets, wooded grassland, and often in riparian vegetation. The species is drought resistant though somewhat frost tender. It grows on variety of soils including limestone, clayey and sandy soils.
 The leaves are browsed by both wild and domestic animals. The wood is used for firewood and charcoal. The wood is light brown, gradually merging into the chocolate-brown heartwood. It is very hard, heavy and straight grained making it very durable, though liable to splitting. It has a fine even texture good for use for agricultural implements such as ploughs, posts, building poles, rough beams, walking sticks and the manufacture of turnery articles. However the small size of the wood limits its usefulness.
Munhunguru tree has many uses in medicine, particularly in Zimbabwe. The fruits are used for jaundice and enlarged spleens. The leaves and roots are taken for malaria, and diarrhea. The roots are used for hoarseness, pneumonia, intestinal worms and as an astringent, diuretic, and pain reliever.
The bark is used as a tanning material. The leaf is carminative, astringent and used as a tonic, an expectorant for asthma, pain relief, gynaecological complaints and treatment for pneumonia and intestinal worms. The Lobedu tribe of southern Africa takes a decoction of the root for the relief of body pains. In India, an infusion of the bark is used as a gargle for hoarseness. In Madagascar, the bark, triturated in oil, is used as an anti-rheumatic liniment. The root and ash have been used as a remedy for kidney complaints.
The glistening leaves can be very attractive when the tree is planted as an ornamental. When closely planted, it forms a close impenetrable barrier that serves as a hedge and it tolerates frequent trimming.
The tree is rarely cultivated in Africa but regenerates naturally from seed and coppice in the bush.