Moringa life forms: bottle trees, slender trees, and tuberous herbs and shrubs
The following Moringa species are characterized by a massive, swollen,
water-storing trunk and radially symmetrical (or nearly so) flowers. All
of these species also have similar patterns of germination and ground tissue
proliferation.
Moringa
drouhardii (Madagascar)
Moringa hildebrandtii (Madagascar)
Moringa ovalifolia (Namibia
and Angola)
Moringa stenopetala (Kenya and Ethiopia)
They were placed by Verdcourt
together in a section of the genus called Donaldsondia in 1985.
The following species of Moringa have an underground tuber when small, but turn into slender trees with age. All three of these species are have bilaterally symmetrical flowers:
Moringa
concanensis Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh
Moringa oleifera India
Moringa peregrina Israel
to Somalia and southern Arabian Peninsula
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The eight Moringaspecies found in northeast Africa span the whole range of life form variation found in Moringa. All but M. peregrina are endemic to northeast Africa, that is, found nowhere else on earth:
Bottle tree
Moringa stenopetala
Slender tree
Moringa peregrina
Small tree with massive, fleshy
roots
Moringa arborea
Moringa ruspoliana
Tuberous shrub/ herb
Moringa borziana
Moringa longituba
Moringa pygmaea
Moringa rivae
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