Compilation
Homalium skirlii

A tree with a long straight slender bole attaining about 27 m height, occasionally up to 33 m, and to 1 m girth, of dense rain-forest, transition, semi-deciduous, galleried and secondary forests of lowlands and foothills in Senegal to Nigeria and Fernando Po, and also into central Africa to the Congo basin. It prefers proximity to running water.The tree has magnificent clusters of rose-coloured flowers. The fruits are also showy and the young leaf-flush is red before turning green. The tree is thus attractive and worthy of cultivation (1, 4, 5).The sap-wood is light brown and hard. Heart-wood is light brown, hard, heavy and with moderately fine texture (7). Because of its strength and hardness it is commonly used for house-posts and is cut for small timbers (3) and boards (6). Several vernaculars alluding to bone reflect the wood’s hardness. The wood is also used in carpentry.A bark-slash will produce a little clear sap which darkens on exposure (6). In Ivory Coast sap from the bark is used in enemas for the treatment of generalised oedemas while lees from the bark are rubbed over the area (2). In Gabon a bark-decoction with other drug-plants is taken by draught for orchitis, and bark-scrapings enter a prescription given to a newly-delivered woman (9).The Yoruba of Nigeria call on the plant in an incantation against small-pox (8), while the bark, finely ground to a powder, is blown by Liberian witchdoctors into a dragon’s lair to stupefy it before slaying it (3).