Among southern African languages it is known (among others) as Mogorwagorwane or Lerutla (Setswana), Umkwakwa (North Ndebele), Morapa or Mookwane (Sepedi), Muhwakwa (Shona), umKhwakhwa (Swati), Nkwakwa or Muquaqua (Tsonga), or Mukwakwa (Venda).

It is native to KwaZulu-Natal, Mozambique, Transvaal, and further north to Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Tropical Africa and the western side of Madagascar.

[1][2] Usually about 6m tall and often multi-stemmed with a spreading, irregular crown, it occurs in open woodland, rocky places, riverine fringes and coastal forest.

Fruit is near-spherical with a thick, woody shell, about 8 cm in diameter and distinctively blue-green in colour when young, turning yellow when mature.

As with other species of Strychnos the seeds are pulverised and thrown into a pool or dammed sections of a stream, affected fish soon rising to the surface, while subsequent cooking breaks down the poison.