Phyllanthus engleri
Phyllanthus engleri
Safety & Hazards
The bark and roots are toxic[1]. Smoking the roots can lead to unconsciousness or death and the use of the roots as a suicide poison has been reported from Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe[2]. Alcohol extracts of the roots are highly toxic to rodents, and stem bark and roots are poisonous to sheep and cattle[2]. Contradicting views exist on the toxicity of the above-ground parts[2].
Cultivation Details
Found in the wild particularly on drier and less arable soils[3]. This species hybridizes in the wild with P. polyanthus to give rise to the hybrid P. fluminis-zambesi[4]. A dioecious species, both male and female forms need to be grown if fruit and seed are required.
Propagation
Seed - Cite as: Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. 2026-02-20. <tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Phyllanthus+engleri>
Pollinators
Data unavailable
References
- [1]Edible Wild Plants of Tanzania — Ruffo, C.K.: Birnie, A. & Tengnas, B. · Regional Land Management Unit; Nairobi. · 2002 · ISBN 9966-896-60-0 ↩︎A very well presented, simple guide to growing and utilizing wild food plants in Tanzania, with line drawings of each plant, a description, habitat and range, non-food as well as food uses, plus basic information on growing the plants.
- [2]Protabase - Plant Resources of Tropical Africa. — http://www.prota.org ↩︎An excellent on-line database with detailed information on over 3,200 species of useful plants of Africa.
- [3]IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — http://www.iucnredlist.org/ ↩︎A list of plants under threat and facing possible extinction, usually with brief details of the threats and information on habitat.
- [4]Flora Zambesiaca — http://apps.kew.org/efloras/fz/intro.html ↩︎An excellent online flora of plants from the Zambezi River basin. It lists a number of the plant uses as well as the habitats and botanical descriptions of the plants.
- [PFAF]Plants for a Future — pfaf.org ↩︎