Description

• Small tree with a crooked growth form, low and much-branched, able to grow up to able 10 m tall.
• Trunk: Fissured and grey bark.
• Green oblanceolate leaves, alternate arrangement, measuring about 4 – 26 cm long and 1 – 7.5 cm wide, subsessile.
• Fruit is a large, green globular berry about 13 – 20 cm long and up to 30 cm wide, attached to the trunk and branches, contains flat seeds which are embedded in the pulp.

Uses

• The young fruit is occasionally pickled.
• .The juice of the fruit is used to treat diarrhoea, pneumonia and intestinal irregularity.
• It is made into a strong tea and drunk to procure an abortion, to ease childbirth, and is used in a mix to relieve severe menstrual pains by eliminating blood clots.
• shells are used in making drinking vessels, but the larger ones serve to store all sorts of articles.