Chrozophora brocchiana (Vis) Schweinf.
Croton brocchianus Vis.
Ara.: Afergak, afarake (Niger). Tamahaq: Tadugu’ndugut, afoeleondshen, aferegak, afaragh, afaelanjid, filingid, tama (Aïr).
Monoecious subshrub, up to 1 m in height, erect, covered by a dense yellowish-white woolliness. Stems lignified at the base, erect, gnarled and highly branched. Leaves alternate, with small stipules, with petiole (2-6 mm) and leaf blade (1-2(2.5) × 0.5-1.5 cm), oval-deltoid to elliptic, obtuse, with a deeply cordate base and covered with a yellowish-white woolliness on both sides. Inflorescences in dense axillary racemes, with male flowers towards the tip and female flowers towards the base, bracts small. Flowers unisexual, actinomorphic, pentamerous, calyx with a velvety indumentum and petals deep red. Male flowers shortly pedicellate, with numerous stamens, up to 10, with the filaments fused together into a column. Female flowers pedicellate (when fruiting the pedicel elongates to reach 6 mm) and with petals smaller than those of male flowers. Ovary superior with 3 locules, styles 3 fused at the base and stigmas bifid. Fruit a trilocular capsule (5 × 6 cm), not curved inwards, covered in membranous plates that are white or whitish with violet tones and shiny. Each locule contains a single seed, which is ovoid, smooth, yellowish-brown, surrounded with a narrow, pale and bright aryl.
Flowering:
No data for this region
Fruiting:
No data for this region
Habitat:
Desert areas, mainly on sandy plains.
Distribution:
Arabia, Cape Verde Islands, from Senegal to Ethiopia reaching northern Nigeria towards the S, and the central Sahara and Egypt towards the N.
Observations:
There is another species with stems that can be somewhat lignified at the base, C. oblongifolia (Delile) A.Juss. ex Spreng. It is an evergreen plant, upright, that can reach 60(80) cm in height, greyish in appearance, for being covered in whitish stellate hairs; leaves (3-7 × 1-2.5 cm) oblong-lanceolate, with entire or incised-dentate margin. It grows in NE Africa and central-western Asia, from Somalia to Egypt, reaching towards the E to India.
Conservation status:
Relatively common and widely distributed species, they are not considered threatened. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Livre Rouge de la flore vasculaire du Maroc (Fennane, 2021) C. brochiana has been considered as Data Deficient (DD). In the updated red list of Egypt (Shaltout & Bedair, 2023) it has been considered as Vulnerable (VU).
