The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 4 plus 5 letter word NILE GREEN
I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
N
I
L
E
G
R
E
E
N
More clues leading to the result NILE GREEN
- A duck, for example, at no time turns this colour
- Engineer left ground in shade
- Pale colour of knight, one with hesitation rising in unfinished story
- Shade of African flower, but not The Purple Rose of Cairo!
- Colour of love, say? Certainly not poetic in retrospect
- Colour, for example, about to be found in fresh linen
- English innocent has nothing on in the shade in Africa
- Student stops engineer working in shade
- Checking van in lock-up, engineer altered tone
- Pale colour of engineer working to contain loch
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "shade in Africa" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case shade in africa = nile green.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.