AFRICAN SAUSAGE TREE
KINGELIA AFRICANA (Lam.) Benth.
Kigelia aethiopica Decne
Kigelia pinnata DC.
Local names: African sausage tree, cucumber tree (Engl.).
The African sausage tree is found in cultivation in Manila and in Los Baños, Laguna Province. It is a native of West Tropical Africa.
This recently introduced plant is a wide-spreading, deciduous tree about 10 meters in height. The leaves are alternate and odd pinnate. The leaflets are opposite, ovate to elliptic-ovate, 8 to 16 centimeters long, and pointed or blunt at the tip. The flowers are red, noctural, and borne in panicles on very long, pendulous pedicels. The calyx is 2.5 to 3 centimeters long, usually 5-toothed, or lobed. The corolla is 10 to 12 centimeters long, the tube is rather slender and the limb, broadly bell-shaped, somewhat curved, and 5-lobed. The fruit is hard, grayish-brown, scurfy, large, oblong or oblong-cylindric, 20 to 30 centimeters in length, indehiscent, and hanging on very long peduncles. Continue reading “AFRICAN SAUSAGE TREE”