Vitellaria paradoxa

Small to medium-sized tree (min. 7) 10-15 (max. 25) m high; much branched, dense, spreading, round to hemispherical crown. In mature trees the bole is short, usually 3-4 m but exceptionally 8 m, with a diameter ranging from 0.3 to 1 m, but most frequently 0.6 m. Bark conspicuously thick, corky, horizontally and longitudinally deeply fissured; protects older trees against bush fires. Slash pale pink, secreting white latex, as do broken twigs or petioles. Leaves in dense clusters, spirally arranged at the end of stout twigs. They are covered by thick bark showing numerous leaf scars. Petioles 5-15 cm long, leaves oblong. Juvenile leaves rust-red and pubescent, later coriaceous, glabrous and dark green, shining, 12-25 cm long and 4-7 cm wide, leaf margin wavy and bent. The flowers develop in the axils of scale leaves, at the extremities of dormant twigs, from buds formed 2 years previously. Inflorescence a dense fascicle 5-7.5 cm in diameter, at the end of a flowering twig, each usually containing 30-40 flowers, though 80-100 have been recorded. Individual flowers white or creamy-white, about 1.5 cm in diameter and subtended by scarious, brown, ovate or lanceolate bracteoles, which are abscised before flower opening. Fruit 5-8 cm long and 3-4 cm wide, elliptic, a yellow-green or yellow berry with thick butter-like, mucous pericarp; generally containing only 1 oval or round red-brown seed (the shea nut), surrounded by a fragile shining shell with a large, round, rough hilum on a broad base.