Common Names: Winged Bersama, Mpange, 
Family: Melianthaceae (Bersama Family)
 
Growth Form, Habitat and Distribution 
An attractive, medium-sized semi-evergreen tree, with upward spreading branches giving a dense shapely crown. Occurring in the wetter northern half of Zambia at medium and low altitudes in evergreen forest and riparian and alluvial and sometimes Miombo woodland and on termite mounds. 
Size    Height 7 to 15m, spread 5 to 10m.
Bark    Brown and smooth.
Leaves    Crowded at the end of branchlets, compound, imparipinnate with a winged rachis and 5 to 10 pairs of opposite, oblong-elliptical, or lanceolate leaflets (8 to 14cm), dark glossy green above, densely hairy below, base and apex tapering and margin sometimes deeply toothed. Petiole 8cm. 
Flowers Conspicuous, greenish to creamy-yellow, tinged with pink (2cm) in long, upstanding candle-like racemes (35cm), October to December.
Fruit    A smooth, round golden velvet capsule (2.5 to 3cm) ripening to brown and splitting into 4 valves, revealing several bright red seeds, about half covered by yellow aril, the following May to October.
Uses    The leaves and roots contain an insecticide. The bark is used to treat intestinal works. Could be an attractive garden tree. 
Other species in Zambia: None, 2 sub-species of B. abyssinica. 4 other Bersama species in