5 Prunus africana Tree Seeds - Indigenous - Red Stinkwood, Rooistinkhout

Prunus africana (Syn. Pygeum africanum Hook. f.) is an evergreen tree native to the montane regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Islands of Madagascar, Sao Tome, Fernando Po and Grande Comore at about 900-3400 m. of altitude. The mature tree is 10-25 m. high, open-branched and often pendulous in forest, shorter and with a round crown of 10-20 m. diameter in grassland. It requires a moist climate, 900-3400 mm annual rainfall, and is moderately frost-tolerant.

The bark is black to brown, corrugated or fissured and scaly, fissuring in a characteristic rectangular pattern. The leaves are alternate, simple, long (8-20 cm.), elliptic, bluntly or acutely pointed, glabrous and dark green above, pale green below, with mildly serrate margins. A central vein is depressed on top, prominent on the bottom. The 2-cm petiole is pink or red. The flowers are androgynous, 10-20 stamens, insect-pollinated, 3-8 cm., greenish white or buff, and are distributed in 70-mm axillary racemes. The plant flowers October through May. The fruit is red to brown, 7-13 mm., wider than long, two-lobed with a seed in each lobe. It grows in bunches ripening September through November, several months after pollination.

Pygeum, an herbal remedy for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), is prepared from the bark of Prunus africana. The collection of mature bark for this purpose has resulted in the species becoming endangered, due to some harvesters (spurred on by the high price per Kilo of Bark) removing too much of the bark in an unsustainable manner. In the 1990s it was estimated that 35,000 debarked trees were being processed annually. The growing demand for the bark has led to the cultivation of the tree for its medicinal uses.

The timber is a hardwood employed in the manufacture of axe and hoe handles, utensils, wagons, floors and furniture. The wood is tough, heavy, straight-grained and pink, with a pungent bitter-almond smell when first cut, turning mahogony and odorless later. It finds use also as firewood.

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