Croton megalobotrys

Croton megalobotrys, the large fever-berry, is a big, rounded shrub or small, deciduous tree of the Euphorbiaceae family, reaching heights up to 15 m (SA Tree List No. 329).

The latex is watery. The bark is pale grey, starting off smooth and grey-green with vertical, whitish lenticel lines, later becoming shallowly, longitudinally fissured. The light-coloured wood is soft and rough-grained, occasionally used as timber.

The species distribution is in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, wider elsewhere in tropical Africa.

The habitat is riverside forests, swamp forest margins, bushveld or thickets at lower elevations on alluvial flats. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002; Van Wyk and Van Wyk, 1997; Codd, 1951; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).