Black plum

Vitex doniana, the African black plum, is a medium-sized tree in the mint family Lamiaceae (formerly Verbenaceae) growing typically 4 to 8 meters tall and occasionally to 15 meters. The bark is rough and grey-brown, and the opposite leaves are digitately compound with 5 (occasionally 3 or 7) obovate to elliptic leaflets, each 6 to 16 centimeters long with entire margins. Small fragrant tubular two-lipped flowers are creamy-white to pale violet and borne in branched axillary cymes. The fleshy ovoid drupes up to about 2.5 centimeters long ripen from green through purple to glossy black, with a sweet edible pulp that gives the tree its common name. The species occurs across savannas, riverine woodland and forest margins through much of sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia and south to Eswatini, Tanzania and Zambia, at elevations from sea level to 1,800 meters. The plant is a source of phytoecdysteroids including 21-hydroxyshidasterone.