African Soapberry

Phytolacca dodecandra, commonly known as endod, gopo berry, or African soapberry, is a trailing shrub or climber native to Tropical Africa, Southern Africa, and Madagascar. It is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants. Morphologically, it is highly variable.

Endod (as it is known in Amharic or shibti in Tigrigna ) has been selected and cultivated by Africans for centuries, particularly in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is used as a soap and shampoo as well as a poison to stun fish. Endod is lethal to snails - a fact discovered by Ethiopian scientists - and may be effective controlling schistosomiasis. After Aklilu Lemma, an Ethiopian scientist, demonstrated endod's potency to American scientists, they took out a patent, hoping to sell endod as a biological control for the Zebra mussel, a pest in the Great Lakes of the US and Canada.