Cola chlamydantha
| Cola chlamydantha | ||||||||||||
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| Cola chlamydantha | ||||||||||||
| K. Schum. |
Cola chlamydantha is a tree in the mallow family in the sterculia subfamily from central to west Africa .
description
Cola chlamydantha grows as an evergreen tree to a height of around 20 meters. The trunk diameter reaches over 30 centimeters. The coarser, grayish bark is cracked to furrowed with age.
The alternate and long-stemmed leaves at the branch ends are composed of hand-shaped leaves with 5–10 leaflets . The bald petiole is up to 80 centimeters long. The leaflet stalks are up to 5.5 inches long. The entire, obovate, lanceolate, glabrous and pointed to tailed leaves are up to 60 centimeters long and 20 centimeters wide. Long-lasting, large, reddish-haired stipules are present.
The flowers appear in small bracts , tufted, kaulifor on the trunk or on the branches ramiflor. The almost sessile, hermaphrodite or unisexual flowers are reddish with a simple flower cover , the petals are missing. The cup-shaped, five-lobed, up to 2.5 centimeters long, petaloid calyx is greyish-white on the outside and reddish-purple on the inside. It is a short androgynophore developed, with approximated, up to about 12-14 pistils or pistilodes and 15-25 sessile stamens or staminodes.
Large and rounded pelvis fruits with up to 12 leathery follicles are formed. The individual, pointed and non-opening, fine-haired, ribbed, orange-reddish, slightly sickle-shaped follicles are multi-seeded with up to 25-30 seeds and up to 15 centimeters long and up to 6 centimeters wide. The elongated seeds, up to 3 centimeters long, are reddish and lie in a thick “liquid”.
use
The sweet and sour fruits are edible.
The cotyledons are used as an inferior substitute for kola nuts .
The bark is used medicinally like the fluid in the fruit chamber.
The rather heavy and hard, coarser wood is used for some applications.
Web links
- as Chlamydocola chlamydantha in PROTA.
- as Chlamydocola chlamydantha on Useful Tropical Plants.
- Cola chlamydantha at ethnopharmacologia.org (pictures).