Cassipourea ruwensoriensis (PROTA)

Plant Resources of Tropical Africa Introduction

List of species

General importance
Geographic coverage Africa
Geographic coverage World
Timber

Cassipourea ruwensoriensis (Engl.) Alston

Protologue: Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1925: 263 (1925).

Family: Rhizophoraceae

Origin and geographic distribution

Cassipourea ruwensoriensis is distributed in Central and East Africa, from the Central African Republic and DR Congo east to Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.

Uses

The wood of Cassipourea ruwensoriensis is suitable for light construction, ship and boat building, vehicle bodies, furniture and cabinet work, musical instruments, boxes and crates, interior trim, toys and novelties, turnery, and for veneer, plywood, hardboard and particle board.

Properties

The heartwood is whitish with mauve markings in the core, and indistinctly demarcated from the sapwood. The grain is straight, texture fine and even. The density is 810–900 kg/m³ at 12% moisture content. The wood is refractory in seasoning, but with proper care in stacking, surface checking is not serious. The wood is easy to work by hand and machine tools, producing a fine surface. It tends to split on nailing, making pre-boring necessary. It glues, peels and slices well. The wood is resistant to wear and abrasion.

The durability of the wood is low. Logs are susceptible to stain and insect attack, including Lyctus borers. They should be removed quickly from the forest or be treated with insecticides or fungicides. The heartwood is extremely resistant to impregnation, the sapwood moderately resistant.

Description

• Shrub or small to medium-sized tree up to 25 m tall; bark smooth; young branches densely yellow pubescent, darkening and becoming glabrous.
• Leaves opposite, simple; stipules between the petioles, 6–7.5(–12) mm × 2–3(–4) mm; petiole up to 10 mm long; blade elliptical to obovate, (4–)7–16 cm × (2–)3–8 cm, base cuneate, apex acuminate, margin toothed, glabrous above, shortly hairy to glabrous below.
• Inflorescence an axillary fascicle, (2–)4–15-flowered.
• Flowers bisexual, regular, 4(–5)-merous; pedicel 1–5 mm long, jointed in upper half; calyx with tube c. 1.5 mm long, lobes 4–6.5 mm long, triangular, hairy outside; petals 4–6 mm long, deeply fringed, greenish cream, glabrous; stamens 16–20; ovary half-inferior, hairy, 3–4-celled, style 4–5 mm long, persistent.
• Fruit an ovoid capsule 6–8 mm long, densely hairy, dehiscent, usually 2-seeded.
• Seeds 4–4.5 mm × 3 mm, testa leathery and dark red-brown, aril pink-orange.

Other botanical information

Cassipourea comprises about 70 species, widely distributed in the tropics.

Ecology

Cassipourea ruwensoriensis is a common understorey tree occurring in upland evergreen forest or dense semi-swamp forest, at 500–2500 m altitude.

Prospects

Little is known about Cassipourea ruwensoriensis and therefore its conservation status and potential as a timber tree of wider usage are not known.

Major references

• Bolza, E. & Keating, W.G., 1972. African timbers: the properties, uses and characteristics of 700 species. Division of Building Research, CSIRO, Melbourne, Australia. 710 pp.

• Lewis, J., 1956. Rhizophoraceae. In: Turrill, W.B. & Milne-Redhead, E. (Editors). Flora of Tropical East Africa. Crown Agents for Oversea Governments and Administrations, London, United Kingdom. 20 pp.

Other references

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

• Liben, L., 1987. Rhizophoraceae. In: Bamps, P. (Editor). Flore d’Afrique centrale. Spermatophytes. Jardin botanique national de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium. 36 pp.

• Wimbush, S.H., 1957. Catalogue of Kenya timbers. 2nd reprint. Government Printer, Nairobi, Kenya. 74 pp.

Author(s)

• M. Brink, PROTA Network Office Europe, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 341, 6700 AH Wageningen, Netherlands

Correct citation of this article

Brink, M., 2006. Cassipourea ruwensoriensis (Engl.) Alston. In: Louppe, D., Oteng-Amoako, A.A. & Brink, M. (Editors). PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa / Ressources végétales de l’Afrique tropicale), Wageningen, Netherlands. Accessed 3 April 2025.

• See the Prota4U database.