Moringa oleifera – known as mronge in Swahili and the Horse radish tree in English – is a fast growing, hot climate, small tree native to India, Malaysia and the Middle East that was introduced into East Africa in the early 1900’s and is now naturalised in many areas. It is a very useful tree, easy to establish and adaptable to a wide range of sites in the hotter areas of East Africa being both drought tolerant and able to withstand temperatures up to 40º C. It is used as food for both human consumption and animal feed, produces oil from the seeds that can be sold, is very good bee forage, and is a useful medicine for treating skin ailments. It can be grown as a crop or used as an agroforestry tree as it assists in erosion control and has only light shade which is not detrimental to adjacent crops. The seeds also contain an ingredient in the kernel that will purify dirty water of both soil and bacterial contamination.