M. Thulin 3:203-204

Plants shrubs, subshrubs, or woody-based herbs, up to 2 m tall; stems greyish tomentose. Leaves: petioles 0.5-2 cm long; blades 3-10 cm long, 1.5-7 cm wide, ovate to obovate or oblong, bases cuneate, margins entire or almost so, tips acute to obtuse. Inflorescences axillary clusters of 3-6 flowers. Flowers: pedicels upt o 5 mm long, tomentose; calyces 4-5 mm long in flower, 10-28 mm long in fruit, tomentose outside, lobes narrowly triangular, shorter than to about as long as the tube, acute; corollas 5-7 mm long, greenish, thinly tomentose outside, lobes triangular, shorter than the tube; stamens: filaments about 2-3 mm long; anthers about 1 mm long; ovaries with an inconspicuous disk at the base; styles 1.5-2.5 mm long. Berries 5-8 mm in diameter, globose, shiny, red, surrounded and much exceeded by the enlarged ovoid-acuminate calyces; seeds about 2 mm in diameter, reticulate.

Withania somnifera grows along roadsides, in waste ground, alluvial plains and rocky soils, often near wells at 1-1500 m. Thulin reports it from regions N1-N3, C1, C2, and S2, and S3 in the Flora of Somalia.

As its name suggests, Withania somnifera has narcotic properties and surely owes its wide distribution partly to dispersal by humans.  In traditional Somali medicine, deconcoctions of the root and leaves are used, for example, as pain killers.

©Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; reproduced with permission.

H. Pickering & A.I. Awale (2018) Introduction to the plants of Central Somaliland

Habit: woody based herbs, subshrubs or shrubs up to 2 m tall with stems covered with greyish hairs.

Leaves obovate to oblong, 3-10 cm long and 1.5-7 cm wide, lower surfces densely hairy, upper surfaces almost glabrous.

Inflorescences 3-6-flowered axilllary clusters.

Flowers  flowers 5-7 mm long, greenish, calyces 4-5 mm long on flowers, 10-28 mm long and exceeding and surrounding the berries in fruit, 

Withania somnifera grows along roadsides, in waste ground, alluvial plains and rocky soils, often near wells at 1-1500 m. Thulin reports it from regions N1-N3, C1, C2, and S2, and S3 in the Flora of Somalia.

As "somnifera" suggests, Withania somnifera has narcotic properties and surely owes its wide distribution partly to dispersal by humans.  In traditional Somali medicine, deconcoctions of the root and leaves are used, for example, as pain killers.