''Pistacia aethiopica'' is an African and Arabia coast peninsula species of

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

in the family

Anacardiaceae The Anacardiaceae, commonly known as the cashew family or sumac family, are a family of flowering plants, including about 83 genera with about 860 known species. Members of the Anacardiaceae bear fruits that are drupes and in some cases produce ...

. It is a

dioecious Dioecy ( ; ; adj. dioecious, ) is a characteristic of certain species that have distinct unisexual individuals, each producing either male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproduction is ...

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

of the pistacio genus, growing up to tall, adapted to the dry environment. It is found in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

Somaliland Somaliland, officially the Republic of Somaliland, is an List of states with limited recognition, unrecognised country in the Horn of Africa. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, E ...

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

, and

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

Description

It is an evergreen slow-growing tree that emits a very intense smell: bitter, resinous or similar to medication. The tree reaches 5–15 m tall, and rarely is a shrub, often with multiple stems, the trunk of 0.6 m in diameter, and its bark color is brown-black and fissured. It has glabrous leathery leaves, with a thick cuticle. The leaves are aromatic, 4-16-18 foliolate, and glossy bright green. The leaves have rachis 10 cm long. The tree is

, with male and female trees producing different sex flowers. Both types of flowers are small and greenish. It grows slowly, becoming 1000 years old.

Ecology

It is found in dry evergreen forest (often with'' Juniperus'' and ''Olea - Euclea'') and associated shrubs or wooded grassland, thickets of ''Buxus'', deciduous with ''Combretum, Acacia'' and ''Barkey'' in soils of limestone, sandstone, or basalt, to an altitude of 900–2550 m. ''P. aethiopica'' have many adaptations to aridity, such as an advanced development of palisade tissue and extensive root growth. These adaptive traits allow species to grow in very harsh and dry areas with low rainfall. In the main part of its range in North and East Africa, the species is fairly common because is used for a variety of purposes, including timber, dye, fodder, agriculture and livestock food. An outlying subpopulation in Arabia is restricted to Jebel Iraf on the old North Yemen-South Yemen border. The species is thought to be extinct in Eritrea.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5435714 Near threatened plants

aethiopica The ''Aethiopica'' (; , , 'Ethiopian Stories') or ''Theagenes and Chariclea'' (; , ) is an ancient Greek novel which has been dated to the 220s or 370s AD. It was written by Heliodorus of Emesa and is his only known work. Author The author of t ...

Flora of Western Asia Flora of North Africa Flora of Africa Taxonomy articles created by Polbot