DHAYITA

(Grewia velutina)

A dried plant specimen of dhayita

Family: Tiliaceae

Other names:  Seffa, Haroessa

Dhayita is a fruit from East Africa.  It grows wild in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda at altitudes ranging from 300 1500 m.  It grows commonly in grasslands, along riverbanks in lowland and midland areas.

Description:

A deciduous spreading shrub or tree, up to 5 m high; young branches

cylindrical, purple to grey, pubescent, with numerous lenticels.

Leaves whitish-grey and tomentellous with soft hairs on both sides or green and pubescent above, and white tomentose below; petiole 3–7 mm long, pubescent; blade elliptic, obovate or rhomboidal, 2–7 x 1.5–3 cm, obtuse to subacuminate at the

apex, rounded to slightly asymmetrical at the base, with irregularly crenate-serrate margin.

Inflorescences (1–)2–3 together, 1.5–3.5 cm long and 3(–4)-flowered; peduncle 2–8 mm long; pedicel 4–10 mm long. Sepals elliptic, 8–12 mm long; Petals yellow, broadly elliptic to obovate, 6–7 mm long, with or without nectar-producing claws. Ovary 1-celled with (4–)6 ovules; style with 3 broad stigma-lobes.

Fruit unlobed, 5–7 mm in diam., glabrescent to pubescent; stone reticulate, edible.

Utilization:

The fruits are sweet with a blend of acid.  These are eaten by local people. 

            The shoots are strong and bendable.  So the are widely utilized for or making bows, beehives, walking sticks, poles and handles for farm tools.

Cultivation:

New plants can be raised from seed.