Birdplum or brown ivory is an attractive garden tree, with tough, yellow-brown wood that makes excellent furniture and sticks. Berchemia discolor is also used medicinally for various ailments. It can be easily propagated from seed.
Berchemia discolor is a medium to large, deciduous or evergreen tree, up to 20 m tall. Its stem is pale green, covered with brown lenticels, especially when young. The bark is dark grey and roughly fissured.
The leaves are opposite, simple, elliptic or sometimes elliptic-oblong, 50–140 × 25–60 mm, shiny dark green above, pale green below, hairless; midrib prominently raised below and ending at the margin. The flowers are borne in small clusters in the leaf axils and greenish yellow in colour. It flowers in summer, from October to January. The fruit is an ovoid, fleshy drupe, yellow to pale orange when ripe. The fruits appear from January to July.
Uses
The bark and leaves are used medicinally for various ailments, such as treating wounds and many more. The Venda people use the fruit and the bark to treat infertility. The wood, which is yellow-brown, hard and attractive, is suitable for furniture and sticks. It also makes good firewood. The fruit is edible, very sweet in taste and also used to make beer or pleasantly flavoured porridge. In traditional medicine, the juice from the fruit is used to treat bleeding gums.
Growing Berchemia discolor 
Berchemia discolor can be propagated by seed. Sow fresh seed in a flat seedling tray filled with a mixture of river sand and compost (5:1). Once the seed has germinated, transplant the seedlings into nursery bags filled with a well-drained mixture of river sand, loam and compost (2:2:1). Birdplum/brown ivory is a fast grower, at a rate of 600–800 mm per year. Berchemia discolor is drought resistant. It is frost sensitive, therefore suitable for the frost free areas.