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Burkea africana Hook. f. |
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Leguminosae Rhodesian ash, seringa tree, wild seringa |
Author: Le Houérou |
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Tree with an attractive appearance, up to 20 m, with a spreading crown. Bole straight, clean up to 7 m and 80 cm diameter, mbh. Sap wood light brown with concentric rows filled with gum looking like annual rings. Heart wood reddish-brown to dark brown, hard, heavy and difficult to work, amenable to a fine polish but liable to splitting on nailing. Bark scaly, creviced grey to black, slash yellowih outside dark red inside. Twigs, thick, pubescent, grey to brown. Leaves alternate, bipinnate 10-35 cm long, with 2-5 pairs of pinnae more or less opposed and 6-18 leaflets per pinna elliptic to oval, 2-5 x 3-5 cm, blunt or emarginate, symmetrical at the base, petioles 2-0.4 cm long; leaves silvery-pubescent or glabrescent. Nerves unconspicuous, pinnate with 8-12 pairs of secondary glabrous nervelets ; tertiary nerves reticulate. Flowers cream to white, fragrant, 0.6 cm wide set in racemes up to 30 cm long. Pod elliptic, flattened, 6 x 2.5 cm, more or less pubescent. Found on well drained soils in Sudanian and Guinean savannas stretching to the border of the Sahel northwards. Occasionally common but not gregarious. Common in Sudanian savannas from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, East and South Africa. Heart wood, considered as hard, strong construction-timber, particularly fit for railway sleepers, wagons, fencing, mine-props, variable resistance to insect/borers. Good fuel and charcoal. Bark toxic to stock, containing alkaloids and tannins and a black dye. Bark and pods used for tanning hides. Pounded bark used as fish stupefiant, and arrow poison antidote. Decoctions for cough, colds, stomach obstruction, infusions against gonorrhoea and syphilis. The foliage is toxic to all stock. Flowers are mellifluous. Occasionally planted as street tree. Aubréville 1950 ; Hutchinson & al. 1958 ; Brenan 1957b ; Brenan 1958 ; Dalziel 1955 ; Kerharo & Adam 1974 ; Berhaut 1975 ; Geerling 1982/88 ; Burkill 1995. |