Botany
Small tree, 5-8 meters high, with elongated branches. Leaves are distichous, the upper surface rough; the lower, pale and covered with soft dense hairs, oblong-ovate to lanceolate, 8-15 cm long, with the base frequently unequal, broad and heart-shaped, and the apex long and thinly pointed, and prominently 3-nerved and finely toothed margins. Cymes are dense, hairy, 1 to 2.5 cm long. White flowers are numerous, about 3 mm long. Fruit is ovoid, about 3.5 cm long.

Constituents
Bark contains a little tannin.

Parts used
Bark, wood.

Uses
Folkloric
• Juice obtained from macerating the soft wood is used for poulticing swellings.
• Fruit, leaves, bark, stems, twigs and seeds are used in traditional East and West Africa, Tanzania and Madagascar medicine.
• In Cote-d'Ivoire, leaf decoction used for hypertension.
Others
Young leaves eaten as spinach by the Zulus.
The bast used in making string or rope.
The wood which is soft is used in making wooden shoes.
The bark tannin used in roughening and coloring fishing lines.

Studies
• Phytochemicals: (1) Study of extracts of trunk and root barks isolated 16 compounds; among them – methylswertianin, decussatin, glycosides of decussatin, sweroside, scopoletin, lupeol, ß-sitosterol and hexacosanoic acid. (2) Study yielded 8 compounds: ampelopsin F, (-) epicatechin, (+)-catechin, (+) syringaresinol, cinnamic acide among others. (3) Study isolated from stem-bark of TO a new pentacyclic triterpenoid alcohol, trematol. (3) New Dihydrophenanthrene and Phenyldihydroisocoumarin Constituents of Trema orientalis (Link)
• Ethnobotanical Study: Trema orientalis was one of 33 species of plants used for treatment of hypertension. Used as a leaf decoction, its effect was attributed to polyphenols, potassium retention and the promotion of diuresis.

Availability
Wildcrafted.