English: Ganiyari.
Region: eastern Africa, tropical Asia, Australia, Pacific Islands.
Habitat: forest regrowth, brushwood and hedges, often near the sea; mixed and open forests on mountain slopes and along streams; elevations of 100 to 300 metres; sandy soils and limestone.
Content: essential oil, yellowish-green; oleoresin.
Use: leaves, cooked as vegetable, with acid flavour medicines; seeds for food, with yams; fibre and wood; in hedges.
BotanySpiny shrub or small tree; low crown; up to 10 metres tall; agreeable aromatic smell.
Root: warm bitter taste and agreeable smell.
Stem: quite short; up to 30 cm in diameter; much-branched; branches procumbent, rooting into the ground.
Leaves: extremely variable.
Flower: calyces extremely variable; flowering all year round.