Combretum aculeatum Vent.
Hermaphrodite climbing shrub that can reach 4 m in height if supported on trees and rocks (up to 8 m in more rainy areas). Branches with greyish to dark red bark, fibrous, with recurved spines up to 3 cm, which are in fact enlarged and hardened petioles. Young branchlets hairy, pubescent. Leaves 3-5 × 5-7(8) cm, simple, with petiole 1-10 mm, opposite or subopposite, ovate, obovate or elliptical (suborbicular when young), acute, obtuse or emarginate, with entire margin, without stipules, from glabrescent to pubescent on both sides, the younger leaves always pubescent. Inflorescence corymbiform, axillary, 1.5-2 cm, with longly petiolate foliaceous bracts. Flowers pentamerous, very fragrant. Sepals fused, with 5 triangular shallow lobes, from greenish to reddish. Petals 4-6 × 1-2 mm, free, broadly lanceolate, very narrowed towards the base, white, white-reddish or yellowish, sometimes pubescent on the outside. Stamens inserted above the tube of the calyx, with filaments 5-10 mm and red anthers, longly exserted. Ovary inferior. Fruit an ovoid samara (1.2-2.7 cm long), with 5 longitudinal papery wings, 4-6 mm wide, indehiscent, from light yellow to brown-reddish, glabrous or pubescent.
Flowering:
March to June.
Fruiting:
June to October.
Habitat:
Sparse forests, savannahs and thickets in dry and subdesertic areas. On any type of soil, rocky, stony, sandy, etc., from almost sea level to about 600 m. Logically, the more developed specimens are those growing on the banks of permanent or temporary rivers.
Distribution:
Mainly in N of the Equator in Africa, reaching Tanzania to the SE. In North Africa it is becoming less and less common, but it is broadly distributed from western Sahara to the Red Sea in Sudan and Eritrea.
Observations:
As is the case with many trees and shrubs of the Sahara and the Sahel, they have many uses for the local population. The serious droughts of the last decades, together with the growing cattle industry and the excessive wood harvest for charcoal and domestic fires, are causing this and other species of the area to become rarer.
Conservation status:
Species becoming less common, but still broadly distributed. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.