Mobola plum or hissing tree species are popular in Zimbabwe for its important fruits as a source of food during the drought periods where rural villagers picked them to supplement their food shortages.During the height of Zimbabwean crisis in 2008 ,in various media there were reports of people kicked and killed by donkeys whilst competiting for these mobola plum fruits.
The botanical name of this tree species is called parinari curatellifolia and the chishona dialect named it Muhacha. Traditionally the shona people were said to go under this tree shade and kneed dowm as a way of worshipping to their ancestors to give them food. Even these days some villagers can do their traditional rituals of requesting rainfall from God through their ancestors under this tree shade.The unpleasent smell which is found when walking along this woodlands is not yet known where it come from although the botanists are still doing research on this tree.
The hissing tree as it commonly known by English speakers is a mushroom shaped tree of about 12 metres in height . The leaves are evergreen throughout the year spreading all over the tree.The characteristics of tree is found in sandy loamy soils in open deciduous woodlands and in zimbabwe the mobola plum trees are found everywhere except in limpopo and Zambezi valleys.
The barks are dark grey and rough when old ,but smooth yellowish covered with wooly hairs in small growing shoots.The older barks are used to tan hides. Traditional healers collect the fleshy barks and ground them into powder ,then soaked into water as they prepare a medicine to cure chest illness.
The leaves which are smooth edged ,slightly furry and not skinny veins are easy to see because of being evergreen even after some tree species shade its leaves in the woodlands.
Flowers are small white develop into a short ring ,furry head and ovary 2-chamberd . Frowers appear in July to October .The local shona people has an expression which says,"Totenda maruva tadya chakata" which simply means we give honour to the flower blosoms after the fruit ripens. This is usually because this hissing tree can have flowers and not produce fruits in some years. Usually during drought season this tree can produce a lot of fruits than other years.
The fruit is oval to round with a diameter range from 4- 10 cm and is russet -yellow ,greyish scaly and pitted. The fruit is edible when ripe ,their are delicious although cuttle dry. Fruits appear in October to January.
The villagers in different areas around the country can prepare fruits into a porridge or syrup drink. Mostly the local people believe that when there is a drought their ancestors make the muhacha tree to produce a lot of fruits to help the starving people to survive the next season.
The wood is light brown and very hard which is difficult to be attaked by wooden moths.The word hissing delived from the sound produced by saw when cutting this wood.The wood contains small crystals like tiny grains of sand which are very hard to work on by wood specialists. The wood is poor to use as a fire wood and again most of the local people believed it as a taboo to fetch it as a firewood because of its relationships and significance with the ancestral spirits. In dry poor woodlands in most of the rural residential places this is the only tree commonly found and it helps the people to predict their next summer seasons from how it is flowering and producing fruits to know the rainfall patterns. Usually they believed that if plenty of frowers and fruits produced it means drought which means they must conserve their previous produce to the next season.
The tree is one of the popular herbal medicine which mostly work according to your belief in the local ancestors and spirit mediums.Soaked roots in water for atleast an hour can treat diarrhoea and some burned the wood to produce smells for sending away bad spirits. The tree lovers can emulate is this mobola plum tree with its shade provides a good serenity to the environmental admirers.
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