Umdhlebi

Umdhlebi or umdhlebe is an unverified plant species purported to originate in Zululand, South Africa. Henry Callaway's The Religious System of the Amazulu (1870) records several stories of the tree; an additional report appeared in an 1882 note in the journal written by Reverend G. W. Parker, a missionary in Madagascar.
To date, no specimen of the umdhlebe has ever been recovered, and other than 19th-century anecdotal evidence, no further verification is known to exist.
Characteristics
Though providing little in the way of physical description—focusing instead on the extreme toxicity of the plant and its purported capacity for movement—the accounts collected by Callaway nonetheless mention several varieties of umdhlebe. Parker describes two of these in greater detail: a small, shrub-like form, and a larger tree with two layers of bark—a dead outer layer, and a new living layer that grows beneath it; both are described as having red and black fruit and brittle, glossy, lanceolate leaves.
The fruit of the tree was reported to hang from branches like small poles.
Habitat
The umdhlebe is reported to grow in a variety of habitats, but to prefer rocky ground. Parker notes that due to superstition, the area around the tree is never inhabited despite often being fertile'.

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