Flora of Somalia 2: 169

Plants shrubs or trees to 8 m tall, usually spiny with spreading or pendulous branches. Stems and spines greyish-green and minutely puberulous or tomentellous when young, becoming light brown and glabrous or almost so. Spines arising 0.1-0.4 cm above their subtending leaf, (0.4-)2-8(-11.5) cm long, naked except for a few scale-leaves or, rarely, a single short lateral spine; scale leaves rare, quickly falling, about 0.75 mm long. Foliage leaves only on the stems, puberulous to tomentellous, often becoming glaborus or lamost so, subsessile or pteiolate; petioles 0-2(3.5) cm long; petiolules (0-)1-5(-8) mm long;leaflets 1-6.8 cm long, 0.3-5 cm wide, elliptic to broadly ovate or obovate, leathery, base cuneate, tio bluntly acute to obtuse or rounded. Inflorescenes with (1-)2-15(-20) or more in loose to tight, sometimes spikelike clusters at spine nodes or on spineless stems. Flowers 5-merous; pedicels 4-11(-20) mm long, tomentellous; petals 4.5-6.5 mm long, narrowly obovate-elliptic, yellowish or blue-green; stamens 10; ovary pubescent to tomentose; style 1-2 mm long. Fruits elongating markedlly in early development, becoming ovoid to ellipsoi, (2.3-)2.9-4(-4.5) cm long (1.3-)1.7-2.2(-2.5) cm long, rounded or truncate at both ends, usually yellow when ripe.

There are two varieties in Somaliland and Somalia. They differ as shown in the key. Balanites aegyptiacius var. aegyptiacus is known only from southern Somalia;  Balanites aegyptiacius var. pallidus from regions N1-N3 of the Flora of Somalia, i.e., Somaliland and Puntlan, Somalia. 

A proposal to treat Balanites aegyptiacus as feminine, like the other species names in Balanites, was rejected. Hence, continued use of the ending "us" both for the species and its infraspecies.  

©The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Reproduced with permission. 

Mary E. Barkworth

Habit: trees or shrubs, to 8m tall. spiny.

Stems and spines: greyish green and minutely hiar when young, becoming brown and hairless or almost so.

Spines growing up to 0.4 cm above their subtending leaf, without leaves, flowers, or their scars.

Leaves: scale leaves rare, shorter than 1 mm, only at the base of the spines, and falling rapidly; foliage leaves alternate with 2 leaflets, leaflets narrowly elliptic to broadly ovate or obovate, 1-6.8 cm long and leathery.

Flowers with 4-5 separate petals 4.5-6.5 mm long.

Fruits becoming ovoid or ellipsoid, usually 2.5- 4.5 cm long at maturity.

Balanites aegyptiaca differs from other species of Balanites in Somaliland and Somalia in ithaving naked spines - no leaves or flowers  (nor scars from where they have dropped off.