This medium-to-large tree is grown for its beauty & for its novelty value. In Malawi, roasted fruits are used to flavour beer and aid fermentation. The tough wood is used to make dugout canoes in Botswana and Zimbabwe. Medicinally, traditional remedies prepared from crushed, dried or fresh fruits are used to deal with ulcers, sores and syphilis – the fruit has antibacterial activity. Today, beauty products and skin ointments are prepared from fruit extracts. The sausage tree boasts long, open sprays of large, wrinkled, maroon or dark red trumpet-shaped flowers that are velvety on the inside. The unique fruits look like giant sausages! Kigelia is a forest tree and will grow in either sun or shade. The huge, grey-brown fruits, hang from long stalks, from December to June & weigh anything up to 9 kg!