Trees Bees Use

PARINARI EXCELSEA

Reinhard Fichtl, Weissgerbergraben 5, 93047 Regensburg, Germany

Parinari excelsea

PHOTOS © REINHARD FICHTL

Apicultural value

Honey bees frequently visit the flowers for pollen and nectar. Parinari excelsea flowers during the very dry season and therefore is an extremely valuable tree for bees.

Recommended for planting to increase honey production

Family

Chrysobalanaceae

Names

Grey Plum, Gingerbread Plum, Guinea Plum

Description

An evergreen tree growing up to 35 m high and over 4 m in girth in humid rain-forest. Not so tall in Guinean forest reaching only 8 m high in areas of open (often riverine) woodlands, with a thick rounded or flatly-spreading crown.

Bark: Grey: brown, rough, finely and often long-fissured.

Leaves: narrowly elliptic or lanceolate-elliptic, dark green and glabrous and sometimes shiny above.

Flower: arranged in triflorous cymes, with white ovate petals. Flowering trees are found from July to October (in Zambia).

Fruit: an ellipsoid to nearly globose drupe, warty, yellowish to reddish brown when ripe. Pulp fleshy and yellowish.

Distribution

Grows as a dominant or co-dominant tree in lowlands and in mountain regions common throughout, locally abundant and often forming nearly pure stands. Occurring on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and one of the most widespread and abundant forest trees in Africa: Angola, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, The Gambia, Uganda, Togo, Tanzania and Zambia. In Africa it occurs in nearly all forest types of the Guineo-Congolian region, on the mountains of East Africa and in the northern part of the Zambezian region.

Also in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.

Fruit of Parinari excelsea

Practical notes

• Fast growing.

• Propagation by wildlings and root suckers.

• Sometimes Parinari excelsea is left in grassland after the destruction of forest, and may consequently act as the centre for re-establishment of the forest.

Uses

The wood makes good firewood and charcoal; also in demand for heavy construction, poles, piles, joinery, mine props, furniture, ladders, agricultural implements, tool handles, veneer, plywood and block-board. In Zambia it is used to make dug-out canoes.

The kernel is edible, and is oil-bearing. It is usually eaten after roasting and then mixed with other foods. Roasted bark is added to palm wine to improve its flavour.

Parinari excelsea flowers