Common Coral Tree

Erythrina lysistemon, the common coral tree, is a deciduous tree in the pea family, Fabaceae, native to South Africa. Its other names include lucky bean tree, umsintsi in Xhosa, muvhale in Venda, mophete in Tswana, koraalboom or kanniedood in Afrikaans, mokhungwane in Sotho and mutiti in Shona. It is regularly cultivated in gardens and parks. It reaches nine to twelve metres, with smooth grey bark and hooked prickles on the trunk and branches, and it is leafless for up to four or five months of the year. Scarlet flowers appear in dense racemes in spring before the leaves. Wikipedia's article on muti records that, among the Xhosa of the Eastern Cape, pieces of the trunk's bark are bound together and infused for the woman to drink, to induce labour pains during childbirth.