Friis, I. (2206) Sapotaceae in Flora of Somalia 3: 12-18
Plants small or medium-sized trees with rounded crowns, usually to about 15 m tall, sometimes to 25 m tall, usually with milky white latex; young branchlets often forming spurs (short shoots) 2-3 cm long with densely clustered leaves but leaves sometimes also present on the normal, long shots. Leaves petiolate; petioles 3.5-5 cm long, usually abouut half the length of the blades; blades somewhat leathery,elliptic to elliptic-oblong, 4-12 cm long. 3-4 cm wide. bases cuneate, tips acute or broadly acute. Inflorescences of single flowers ot up to 4 in axillary clusters. Flowers pedicellate; pedicels 10-15 mm long, erect or spreading; flower buds about 5 mm long and 3 mm wide, blunt; calyces in 2 whorls. sepals of outer whorl about 6 mm long and 3 mm wide with rusty brown hairs and a pale or white stripe along the margins, those of the inner whorl slightly smaller; corollas white or cream, about 7 mm long, with tubes about 4 mm long, and lobes about 3.5 mm long; stamens with filaments about 0.5 mm long, anthers about 2 mm long; staminodes about 2 mm long; ovaries about 1.5 mm in diameter; styles about 3 mm long. Fruits berries, about 3.5 cm long and 2 cmwide; seeds about 2 cm long 1.2 cm wide, pale to dark brown, scar circulat, almost basal, pale.
Mimusops laurifolia grows on limestone slopes with evergreen bushland and sometimes in wadis at 980-1350 m. It is known from region N1 of Somaliland and from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It has been introduced to Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt (where it was used in funeral rites in Pharonic times.