Kiggelaria africana
| Kiggelaria africana | ||||||||||||
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Kiggelaria africana |
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Kiggelaria | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Kiggelaria africana | ||||||||||||
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Kiggelaria africana is a species of plant in the Achariaceae family from south to south-east Africa and Ethiopia . It is the only species in the monotypic genus Kiggelaria .
description
Kiggelaria africana grows as a half- to evergreen shrub up to 3 meters high or as a smaller tree up to 17 meters high, but it usually remains a bit smaller. The trunk diameter can reach up to 90 centimeters. The grayish bark is smooth, but thick, rough as well as scaly and cracked with age.
The simple, short-stalked leaves are screwy, arranged alternately at the branch ends. The petiole is 1–2.5 inches long. The slightly leathery leaves are usually more or less short and white-yellowish hairy to glabrous and on the edge completely to slightly curved or finely serrated (on young plants or with stick eruptions also serrated to serrated). They are ovate to obovate or elliptical, lanceolate and seldom indented at the tip rounded to pointed. They are 3.5–9 inches long and 2–5 inches wide, and pale green underneath. The stipules are missing.
Kiggelaria africana is dioecious diocesan . In the male specimens, axillary, zymous and little-flowered, small inflorescences are formed. The female flowers appear individually. The unisexual, mostly five-fold and stalked, small flowers are greenish-white to yellowish and with a double flower envelope . The sepals are free and fine-haired. The free, fine-haired petals have a fleshy scale inside at the base. The female flowers are slightly larger and longer stalked, they contain an upper, densely haired and single-chambered ovary with 2–5 short styles . There are 8–12 short stamens in the male flowers .
Small, green-yellow, rounded, hard, leathery and blackish as well as short-haired, about 2 centimeters large capsule fruits with perianth and handle residues are formed. They open at the tip with 3–5 irregular flaps and contain up to 10 seeds. The roundish, 7 millimeter long, black and leathery-woody seeds are encased in an orange to red, fleshy seed coat ( aril , sarcotesta ).
Male flower
Still unripe fruits
Opened fruit
use
The rather heavy wood is moderately resistant.
Web links
- Kiggelaria africana at Useful Tropical Plants.
- Kiggelaria africana at PROTA.
- Kiggelaria africana at treesa.org.
- Kiggelaria africana at CJM Growers.