Boscia mossambicensisKlotzsch

WFO wfo-0000569542 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–f · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Boscia mossambicensis, photographed by i_c_riddell
fig. a i_c_riddell, CC BY 4.0 / 2018-07-27 / obs. 22558106
Boscia mossambicensis, photographed by M Kriek
fig. b M Kriek, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15299760
Boscia mossambicensis, photographed by i_c_riddell
fig. c i_c_riddell, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 22558112
Boscia mossambicensis, photographed by M Kriek
fig. d M Kriek, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15299764
Boscia mossambicensis, photographed by i_c_riddell
fig. e i_c_riddell, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 22558119
Boscia mossambicensis, photographed by i_c_riddell
fig. f i_c_riddell, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 22558131

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K000787922
Filed as
Boscia mossambicensis Klotzsch
Det. by
Goyder. D.J.
Collected
Lotter, M.C.; Turpin, B.C.
Origin
MZ
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 12 botanical countries

Regions where Boscia mossambicensis is native: Botswana, Caprivi Strip, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Northern Provinces, Somalia, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe BotswanaCaprivi StripDR CongoEthiopiaKenyaMozambiqueNamibiaNorthern ProvincesSomaliaTanzaniaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Boscia mossambicensis, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Botswana BOT AFRICA
Caprivi Strip CPV
DR Congo ZAI
Ethiopia ETH
Kenya KEN
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Northern Provinces TVL
Somalia SOM
Tanzania TAN
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 11 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Boscia carsonii Baker
  • Boscia elegans Gilg
  • Boscia grandiflora Gilg
  • Boscia gymnosporiifolia Chiov.
  • Boscia hildebrandtii Gilg
  • Boscia holtzii Gilg & Gilg-Ben.
  • Boscia holtzii Gilg & Gilg-Ben.
  • Boscia pachyandra Gilg
  • Boscia uhligii Gilg & Gilg-Ben.
  • Boscia viridiflava Gilg & Gilg-Ben.
  • Boscia zimmereri Gilg & Winkl.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.