Antiaris toxicaria (Bekele-Tesemma, 2007)

Antiaris toxicaria Moraceae Indigenous

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  bark

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  habit

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  leaves and fruits

• English: Sacking tree, False mvule, false iroko
• Agnuakgna: Tenga, Tungwo
• Mejengrgna: Tengi
• Oromugna: Tenji, Muka late

A tree found from Sierra Leone, east to Sudan and south to Angola, in moist forests. In Ethiopia, it grows in Moist Bereha and Moist to Wet Kolla agroclimatic zones, 300—1,900 m with over 900 mm of annual rainfall. Common in Gambella region.

Timber (light construction, furniture, pallets, crates, plywood), medicine (leaves, latex, seed), bee forage, fibre (bark used as durable sleeping mat and for ropes, bark cloth), arrow poison (latex).

A magnificent deciduous tree of the forest canopy, often 20 m, up to 40 m, the crown rounded, branchlets drooping. A large tree may have a tall clear bole with some buttresses at the base.

• BARK: Smooth, pale grey, marked with lenticel dots and ring marks. When cut thin cream latex drips out, becoming darker.
• LEAVES: Variable, usually oval 5–16 cm x 4–11 cm, the upper half often widest to a blunt or pointed tip, the base unequal and rounded. Saplings and coppice shoots have long narrow leaves, the edge toothed, but rarely in mature leaves. Leaves rough, papery with stiff hairs above but softer below.
• FLOWERS: Small male flowers yellow-green, in clusters about 1.5 cm across, growing just below leaves. Female flowers in disc- or kidney-shaped heads to 3 cm across.
• FRUIT: Bright red, dull and furry, 1.5 cm long, scarlet and velvety when mature; the swollen receptacle contains just one seed. The soft fruit is liked by birds, bats, monkeys and antelope and therefore dispersed by them.

Seedlings, wildings, seed germination sporadic, 70 – 90 % of sawn stones in 18 – 89 days.

• Treatment: Not necessary
• Storage: Loses viability quickly; sow as soon as collected.

It has good self-pruning ability. It is susceptible to fire damage.

The latex is a component for arrow poison while fluid from macerated softwood is used locally as poultice for swellings. The fruit contains latex but reported to be edible. The latex does not store for long, so it should be collected only when required. Bark cloth is obtained by stripping off a section of bark from the tree, then shaving off the outer part of the bark and beating and washing the inner fibrous part. There is little difference between heart and sapwood; it is yellow-white and soft, easily attacked by termites and borers. It can make a tough veneer for the plywood industry. The tree does not compete with crops. Plant individual trees for shade, as avenue trees or as a pure stand.