Musanga cecropioides
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Musanga cecropioides |
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| R.Br. ex Tedlie |
Musanga cecropioides , the umbrella tree or umbrella tree, is a tree in the stinging nettle family from Central and West Africa .
description
Musanga cecropioides grows as a very fast-growing, evergreen to deciduous tree, with a broad, spreading crown in the open, up to 20-30 meters high. The trunk diameter can reach up to 120 centimeters. Usually stilt roots , some of them high, are formed. The relatively smooth bark is grayish to brownish and fibrous, corky. The trees are quite short-lived.
The simple, long-stemmed and shield-shaped, large leaves are arranged in a spiral. They are up to 110 centimeters in diameter and they are hand-shaped cut up to divided with about 10-22 radial and obovate to -lineal lanceolate lobes. The individual lobes, almost bare on the upper side, are up to 40–75 centimeters long and 9–15 centimeters wide, with entire margins and acuminate to tail and whitish hairy on the underside, with a wedge-shaped base. The veins are finely pinnate and raised on the underside. The hairy petiole is up to 60–110 centimeters long. The large, hairy and stem-encompassing, red stipules are fused and up to 20-30 centimeters long.
Musanga cecropioides is dioecious, dioecious, with axillary inflorescences. The very small, sessile to short-stalked flowers have a simple flower cover . The male, stalked and multi-branched inflorescences are up to 15 centimeters in size. The male, yellow flowers with a two-part, hairy Perianth with a small opening, and only one, some previous stamen are in very small tangles head disposed, shield-shaped nailing of bracts surrounding. The female, long-stemmed and flattened, club-shaped inflorescences are spike-like and up to 5 centimeters long, they often appear in pairs. The close-set female, greenish flowers with a tubed, almost bare perianth with a small opening possess an above-permanent, single-chamber ovary with short, easy preceding pen and capitate, brush-shaped scar . The perianth is fused with two filamentary bracts.
Many small, single-seeded and yellow-greenish, about 2–2.5 millimeters long stone fruits are formed, which stand together in a fruit association up to about 10-12 centimeters long . The flattened seeds (stone cores) are 1–1.5 millimeters long.
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 28.
Taxonomy
It was first described in 1819 by Henry Tedlie after Robert Brown in 1818 in JKTuckey, Narrative of an expedition to explore the river Zaire, usually called the Congo, in South Africa, in 1816: 328, 453 in TE Bowdich, Miss. Ashantee: 372. A synonym is Musanga smithii R.Br.
use
The fruits are edible and a drinkable juice can be obtained from the stilt roots, which is also used medicinally.
The leaves, inflorescences, buds, and bark are used medicinally. In order to speed up the birth, the whole stipules are boiled in a soup and also used as a strong emmenagogue .
A fiber can be extracted from the bark. The sheets can be used for polishing.
The light and soft, light to whitish, not durable, coarsely textured wood can be used as a cork substitute, in model making or as insulation or for other purposes. It is known as the umbrella tree , African corkwood, or Parasolier .
literature
- Klaus Kubitzki , Jens G. Rohwer , Volker Bittrich: The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. Vol. II: Flowering Plants Dicotyledons , Springer, 1993, ISBN 978-3-642-08141-5 (Reprint), p. 243 ff.
- A. Engler : Monographs of African plant families and genera. I, Engelmann, 1898, pp. 2, 42 ff, plate XVIII, online at DigiZeitschriften.
Web links
- Musanga cecropioides at Useful Tropical Plants.
- Musanga cecropioides at PROTA.
- Musanga cecropioides . In: S. Dressler, M. Schmidt, G. Zizka (Eds.): African plants - A Photo Guide. Senckenberg, Frankfurt / Main 2014.