Senegalia nigrescens by Lake Malawi

Senegalia nigrescens, the knob thorn and until recently botanically known as Acacia nigrescens, grows to heights ranging between 10 m and 20 m in woodland or wooded grassland (SA Tree List No. 178). This well developed specimen was seen among some palm trees on the shore of Lake Malawi in autumn.

The wood is sometimes used, although it is not borer resistant. It has orange-yellow sapwood and a tough, dark brown core. The wood texture is coarse-grained.

S. nigrescens is distributed from KwaZulu-Natal to tropical Africa as far as Tanzania, Angola, and, of course, Malawi (Carr, 1976; Coates Palgrave, 2002).