Piliostigma thonningii

Piliostigma thonningii, the camel's foot or monkey bread, is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree in the Fabaceae (Caesalpinioideae) widespread across the savannas, wooded grasslands, and dry forest of tropical sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal east to Sudan and south to Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Plants reach 5 to 12 metres tall, with a short, often crooked trunk bearing dark grey, longitudinally fissured bark and a spreading, rounded crown. The alternate leaves are characteristically bilobed — broadly obcordate, 6 to 18 cm long, divided about one-third of their length into two rounded lobes resembling a camel's footprint or split hoof, with prominent palmate venation and a finely tomentose underside. Showy white to pale pink flowers about 2.5 to 4 cm across, with five crinkled petals and ten stamens, are borne in terminal racemes during the early rainy season. The fruit is a large, flat, woody, oblong, indehiscent pod 15 to 30 cm long and 4 to 6 cm wide, dark brown, persistent on the tree.