Cola buntingii

Baker f.

Bush kola

MalvaceaeFruit

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(c) Ehoarn Bidault, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Ehoarn Bidault

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(c) Tarik Bodasing, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

iNaturalist · cc-by-nc
(c) Ehoarn Bidault, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

What to Eat

Edible parts: Fruit, Aril

The fruit and aril are eaten.

Where to Find It

It is a tropical plant. It grows in the undergrowth of the evergreen forest in West Africa.

Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, West Africa,

Countries: Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Benin, Botswana, Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, Congo (Republic), Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Comoros, Liberia, Lesotho, Libya, Morocco, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sao Tome & Principe, Eswatini, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe

How to Identify

A tree. It grows up to 12 m high. It has an uneven trunk. The leaves are in clusters and have leaflets like fingers on a hand. Young parts have dark brown hairs.

How to Grow

The tree produces flowers along the trunk and branches.

Other Uses

The heartwood is orange-brown; the sapwood is grey. The wood is rather hard and heavy. The stems are used for native house construction and as pestles.

Production

In Liberia the nuts are produced from November to December.

Notes

Also put in the family Sterculiaceae.

Names & Synonyms

Askonalebia, Gauo, Karlor, Klawa

References (5)

Brink, M., 2007. Cola laurifolia Mast. [Internet] Record from Protabase. Louppe, D., Oteng-Amoako, A.A. & Brink, M. (Editors). PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa), Wageningen, Netherlands. < http://database.prota.org/search.htm>. Accessed 15 October 2009.
Burkill, H. M., 1985, The useful plants of west tropical Africa, Vol. 4. Kew.
liberianfaunaflora.org Plant Atlas
Manvell, A., 2011, Use of Non-Timber Forest Products around Sapo National Park, Liberia (Report B) p 16
World Checklist of Useful Plant Species 2020. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew