Abutilon longicuspe (PROTA)

Plant Resources of Tropical Africa Introduction

List of species

General importance
Geographic coverage Africa
Geographic coverage World
Vegetable
Carbohydrate / starch
Ornamental
Forage / feed
Fibre
Food security

Abutilon longicuspe Hochst. ex A.Rich.

Protologue: Tent. fl. abyss. 1: 69 (1847).

Family: Malvaceae

• Mbiha (Sw).

Abutilon longicuspe is distributed from Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia through DR Congo and East Africa southward to Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. It also occurs in Egypt and Yemen.

In Kenya the stem is locally used to make string and withies, e.g. for making baskets. In Tanzania it yields string for building houses. In Ethiopia the stem bark is used as rope. The cooked flowers are eaten as a vegetable. The plant is also used as fodder, as ornamental and as a source of bee forage.

In traditional medicine in Kenya the plant is used to ease childbirth and to expel the placenta. The root is used in Tanzania for the treatment of stomach problems.

Fibre from Kenya investigated in the 1950s was yellow, with a tensile strength of 66 kg/mm² and poor spinning quality. The sample had been taken, however, from plants grown under suboptimal conditions, and the growth period and retting time had probably been too short.

Much-branched shrub up to 6 m tall; all parts tomentellous, with or without long simple hairs. Leaves alternate, simple; stipules linear, 6 mm long; petiole 2–19 cm long; blade broadly ovate up to 22 cm × 18 cm, cordate at the base, acuminate to cuspidate at the apex, margin toothed, upper surface dark green, lower surface much paler, both surfaces stellate-velvety, palmately 5–7-veined. Inflorescence a terminal or lateral panicle up to 23 × 13 cm, many-flowered. Flowers bisexual, regular; pedicel 0.5–3(–4) cm long; epicalyx absent; calyx 4–12 mm long, persistent, broadly cup-shaped, 5-lobed, segments acute; petals 5, free, 8–20 mm long, white to pink with purplish centre; stamens many, staminal column cylindrical, 2–7 mm long, purple, filaments 4–12 mm long; ovary superior. Fruit a subglobose schizocarp of follicle-like mericarps, c. 9 mm × 13–15 mm, umbilicate, downy; mericarps c. 20, reniform, 6–10 mm × 4–7 mm, obtuse, 1-seeded. Seeds c. 3 mm × 2 mm, smooth, glabrous.

Abutilon comprises 100–150 species and is distributed in the tropics and subtropics. There is a need for further taxonomical study as the circumscription of several species is obscure.

Abutilon longicuspe occurs at 1000–3000 m altitude in secondary forest and scrub, edges and clearings of upland and riverine forest, grassland, rocky outcrops in grazed areas, and coffee plantations.

Abutilon longicuspe can be propagated by seed. Seeds have dormancy. In experiments in Molo (Kenya, 2500 m altitude) in the 1950s, yields of 700–1000 kg fibre per ha have been obtained, with dry stems yielding 9% of clean, dry fibre after 13 days of retting.

Abutilon longicuspe is not under any threat of genetic erosion, as it has a wide distribution and is common in disturbed habitats.

The plant is up to now of local importance only. Too little information is available to capture its prospects as a fibre plant.

• Beentje, H.J., 1994. Kenya trees, shrubs and lianas. National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya. 722 pp.

• Bussmann, R.W., 2006. Ethnobotany of the Samburu of Mt. Nyiru, South Turkana, Kenya. Journal of Ethnobiology & Ethnomedicine 2: 35.

• Jarman, C.G. & Kirby, R.H., 1954. Abutilon longicuspe fibre from Kenya. Colonial Plant and Animal Products 4: 329–330.

• Ruffo, C.K., Birnie, A. & Tengnäs, B., 2002. Edible wild plants of Tanzania. Technical Handbook No 27. Regional Land Management Unit/ SIDA, Nairobi, Kenya. 766 pp.

• Verdcourt, B. & Mwachala, G.M., 2009. Malvaceae. In: Beentje, H.J. & Ghazanfar, S.A. (Editors). Flora of Tropical East Africa. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom. 169 pp.

• Exell, A.W. & Meeuse, A.D.J., 1961. Malvaceae. In: Exell, A.W. & Wild, H. (Editors). Flora Zambesiaca. Volume 1, part 2. Crown Agents for Oversea Governments and Administrations, London, United Kingdom. pp. 420–511.

• Hauman, L. & Wouters, W., 1963. Malvaceae. In: Robyns, W., Staner, P., Demaret, F., Germain, R., Gilbert, G., Hauman, L., Homès, M., Jurion, F., Lebrun, J., Vanden Abeele, M. & Boutique, R. (Editors). Flore du Congo belge et du Ruanda-Urundi. Spermatophytes. Volume 10. Institut National pour l’Étude Agronomique du Congo belge, Brussels, Belgium. pp. 92–190.

• Heine, B. & Legère, K., 1995. Swahili plants: an ethnobotanical survey. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Köln, Germany. 376 pp.

• Ichikawa, M., 1987. A preliminary report on the ethnobotany of the Suiei Dorobo in northern Kenya. African Study Monographs, Supplement 7: 1–52.

• Kirby, R.H., 1963. Vegetable fibres: botany, cultivation, and utilization. Leonard Hill, London, United Kingdom & Interscience Publishers, New York, United States. 464 pp.

• Mauersberger, H.R. (Editor), 1954. Textile fibers: their physical, microscopic and chemical properties. 6th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, New York, United States. 1283 pp.

• Medina, J.C., 1959. Plantas fibrosas da flora mundial. Instituto Agronômico Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil. 913 pp.

• Missouri Botanical Garden, undated. VAST (VAScular Tropicos) nomenclatural database. [Internet] http://mobot.mobot.org/ W3T/Search/ vast.html. November 2009.

• Teketay, D., 1993. Problems associated with raising trees from seeds. The Ethiopian experience. In: Lieth, H. & Lohmann, M. (Editors). Restoration of tropical forest ecosystems. Proceedings of the Symposium held on October 7–10, 1991. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands. pp. 91–100.

• Vollesen, K., 1995. Malvaceae. In: Edwards, S., Mesfin Tadesse & Hedberg, I. (Editors). Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Volume 2, part 2. Canellaceae to Euphorbiaceae. The National Herbarium, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Department of Systematic Botany, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. pp. 190–256.

• E.G. Achigan Dako, PROTA Network Office Africa, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), P.O. Box 30677-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

Achigan-Dako, E.G., 2010. Abutilon longicuspe Hochst. ex A.Rich. [Internet] Record from PROTA4U. Brink, M. & Achigan-Dako, E.G. (Editors). PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa / Ressources végétales de l’Afrique tropicale), Wageningen, Netherlands. <http://www.prota4u.org/search.asp>.

Accessed 31 May 2025.

• See the Prota4U database.