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Lead Wood Combretum imberbe
- This is a semi deciduous tree growing upto about
20m.
- The bark is smooth on young tree, on older trees
the bark is silvery-grey and is cracked inot rectangular blocks.
- This tree is found from Tanzania to Kwazulu-Natal.
- They flower from November to March and bear
fruit from Febuary to August.
- The heartwood is very hard and heavy weighing
upto 1 200kg per cubic meter of air-dried wood.
- The flowers are a creamy yellow spike and they
have small, 4 winged seed.
- Giraffe, elephant, Kudu, grey Duiker and impala
feed them on.
- They are thought to live for around 2 000 years
and thought to remain standing for at least the same length of time
once the tree dies.
- The wood is sometimes used for furniture and
the ash of the tree has been used as toothpaste and a white wash for
buildings and the gum is edible.
- The Lead Wood is protected specie of tree in
Southern Africa.
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