Terminalia sericea sapling

This Terminalia sericea sapling with slender stem is already showing a flat top on its sparse, lax branches, still covered in comparatively smooth, pale brown bark. The leaves are mostly clustered near the tips of the upper branchlets. There are usually just a few of them on each young stem, while there may be up to ten on an older stem tip.

The leaf shape of the silver cluster-leaf is narrowly obovate to elliptic, the apex tapering or rounded with a small protrusion. Leaf dimensions vary between 3 cm to 12 cm by 1,5 cm to 4,5 cm. Leaves are generally blue-grey, thinly textured but leathery and densely covered in silvery hairs that bring about a silky sheen. The under-surfaces of the leaves are usually paler than above and new leaves are markedly silvery. The leaf midrib is raised, often silvery as well. The lateral veins are less conspicuous, parallel and angling forward towards the margins where they curve inwards or fork. The leaf margins are entire, hairy and sometimes wavy.

There is an account of the leaves of this tree being eaten in Botswana as famine food, while children eat the gum of this tree (Carr, 1974; Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002).