It is found up to 1,000 m (3,300 ft) elevation in large river valleys, in miombo woodland and coastal swampy evergreen forest, mostly on sandy soils, along the eastern parts of central and southern Africa.

It occurs in South Africa in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga provinces, the Kruger National Park, Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Tanzania.

[2] The mature bark is rough, dark brown and fissured, and a blaze showing yellow with orange streaks.

One to eight large brown seeds are enclosed in a yellow, sticky pulp, and these frequently germinate from within the fruit.

The tree was first described from Portuguese East Africa by the Jesuit priest João de Loureiro (1710–1791), who spent time as a missionary in Goa, Macao and Cochin China, but was also a naturalist and mathematician.