Description

A tree to about 20 m high, short bole to 1 m in girth, often divided near the base, much-branched and with stilt-roots, the roots forming a network structure above ground; of secondary jungle often in damp situations and on stream-banks of the forest zone from Guinea and Sierra Leone to West Cameroons, and extending across Africa to Sudan, Tanganyika and Angola.The wood is yellowish-white, soft, fibrous and difficult to work. Though perishable it is used for fencing (7, 8). It is burnt as firewood in SE Nigeria (13). Lye can be extracted from the ash and this is used in Guinea in making soap (Portères in 8).The bark is said to be variable in appearance: in parts of SE Nigeria, at least, it may be greenish white and slightly flaky, or almost white and smooth (13). The slash is slightly tinted but rapidly darkens to brown; there is little or no exudation (13). The bark is used in Ghana for chest-complaints (8) and in Gabon, scrapings cooked in palm-oil are taken to relieve sore-throat (15). In Congo a bark-tisane is said to be cholagogic and antidysenteric (4). The bark is taken in Nigeria as a taenifuge (12).The leaves are enormous, to 70 cm across, digitately compound of 7–9 leaflets, the largest attaining 50 cm length by 25 cm breadth. When they fall and lie on the ground they form a good groundcover retaining moisture and rotting down to form a thick humus. In SE Nigeria the young leaves are commonly eaten in vegetable-soup, hence the tree being known in Yoruba as the ‘soup tree’ (11, 13). The soup is so highly considered by the Egba people as to evoke the saying that ‘one will kill his child for the sake of ibishere soup (or perhaps at the foot of the ibishere tree)’ (7). Some races in Ghana also take the leaves in their diet (7, 8).An extract of the leaves is made in Nigeria with Alehornea (Euphorbiaceae) for taking in cases of dysentry (7, 12), and leafy shoots are chewed by peoples on the Cameroon Mountain for this purpose. In Sierra Leone the liquid in which young leaf-flushes and a peeled green banana have been boiled is a medicine taken little and often to stop diarrhoea and vomiting (10). In the Igala area of Nigeria the leaves are an ingredient of a febrifuge given to small children (3). The Boki of SE Nigeria beat the leaf-petiole into a plaster for application to boils (13) while the bruised leaf is similarly used in Gabon (14). In Congo the leaves chopped up small are eaten raw with salt for heart-troubles, pregnancy complications, dysmenorrhoea and incipient hernia, and sap from young leaves, or the terminal buds is applied topically for toothache, or applied to the chest for bronchitis, or as a throat-paint for laryngitis or sore throat (4). Of the three Myrianthus spp. present in Ivory Coast, this one is the most commonly used as an analgesic for muscular pains and to ’reduce’ fractures and to put into enemas for haemorrhoids. However, sap or powdered leaves when added to soup or to palm wine are said to induce ‘madness’, but other information is that cooking renders the leaves harmless and safe to eat with impunity (5). The Akye of Ivory Coast pound the leaves with those of Ho larrhena floribunda (Apocynaceae) and a chili to a paste which is diluted with warm water for administration as an enema for pain in the back and loins (1).The aerial roots yield an abundant amount of sap when cut up. This is drunk in Congo as an anti-tussive and anti-diarrhoeic, and as a remedy for haematuria and blennorrhoea (4). Agni-Asante people in eastern Ivory Coast prepare a vapour-bath from the diced roots with maleguetta pepper for headache (9).The fruit is heart-shaped and may attain 10–15 cm in diameter. It is sufficiently cherished in Ghana to be called ‘God’s heart.’ It is very hard and green when unripe, but turns yellow and soft when mature. In Congo the whole fruit is boiled in sap from the tree or in palm wine or other fruit ferments to take as an emeto-purgative, and is preferred to the less active bark or leaves which may be used for the same purpose (4). The fruit contains 5–15 seeds, each surrounded by a sweet or acidulous pulp which is commonly eaten. The seeds are enclosed in a woody pericarp amounting to 60–65% in weight of the whole. The kernel is about 1 cm long by 5–7 mm across. It is eaten in various territories after cooking (Ivory Coast, 2; Ghana, Nigeria, Zaïre, 8; Gabon, 15). It is rich in oil containing a 45% content, of which linoleic acid amounts to 93% in a sample of Ivorean material. Sugars are present at 19%, and proteins 30%, and also a large number of amino acids of which the most important feature is the unusual amount of cystine of potential value to a population suffering from a chronic deficiency of sulphur-bearing amino acids (6).