Cordyla pinnata (PROTA)

Plant Resources of Tropical Africa Introduction

List of species

General importance
Geographic coverage Africa
Geographic coverage World
Cereal / pulse
Fruit
Medicinal
Timber
Ornamental
Forage / feed
Auxiliary plant
Food security
Conservation status

Cordyla pinnata (Lepr. ex A.Rich.) Milne-Redh.

distribution in Africa (wild)

tree habit

tree habit

tree habit

bark

bole and foliage

slash

leaves and fruits

fruits

Protologue: Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 41: 232 (1937).

Family: Caesalpiniaceae (Leguminosae - Caesalpinioideae)

Chromosome number: 2n = 20

Vernacular names

• Cayor pear tree, bush mango (En).
• Poirier du Cayor (Fr).

Origin and geographic distribution

Cordyla pinnata occurs through the dry forest and wooded savannah zones from Senegal east to Niger, northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon.

Uses

The wood is used for poles in house construction, joinery, furniture and utensils such as mortars. It is suitable for heavy flooring, interior trim, mine props, ship building, vehicle bodies, railway sleepers, sporting goods and agricultural implements. The bole is often hollowed out to make drums, which are said to be sonorous and can be heard at great distance.

The fresh fruit pulp is edible, although it is slightly astringent and said to cause vertigo. The fruits are important in times of food shortage near the beginning of the rainy season and are often consumed after cooking. Cooked unripe fruits are sometimes added to couscous or mixed with groundnut. Pounded seeds are occasionally added to food.

Decoctions of roots, bark and leaves are added to a bath to treat stomach-ache and orchitis. Root and bark decoctions are taken as diuretic, cholagogue, oxytocic, tonic and aphrodisiac, and to treat gastro-intestinal complaints, diarrhoea, worms, schistosomiasis, lumbago and syphilis. Leaf decoctions or macerations are taken to treat colic and anorexia, and are applied as a vapour bath to treat fever. Leaf powder is applied to abscesses and bark powder is sniffed against headache and colds. Leaf decoctions are given to cattle as a tonic. Powdered bark and leaves are given to cattle against intestinal worms. Bark and leaves are added to water as purifiers. The foliage is browsed by livestock. Cordyla pinnata is valued as nurse tree for crops.

Production and international trade

The wood has been traded as ‘metondo’, but currently it is only used locally. In Senegal in 1960, a bole of Cordyla pinnata yielded on average 2 m³ of sawn wood, in 1975 only 1 m³ and to date most of the well-formed trees have disappeared. The legal annual yield between 1964 and 1972 comprised about 2800 trees.

Properties

The heartwood is yellowish brown to reddish brown and rather indistinctly demarcated from the about 2 cm wide, paler sapwood. The grain is usually interlocked, texture coarse.

The wood is heavy, with a density of 840–880 kg/m³ at 12% moisture content, and hard. It air dries fairly rapidly with some tendency to splitting and checking. The rates of shrinkage are moderately high, from green to oven dry 4.7–5.2% radial and 6.6–7.8% tangential. After drying, the wood is moderately stable to unstable in service. At 12% moisture content, the modulus of rupture is 110–151 N/mm², modulus of elasticity 12,740–15,600 N/mm², compression parallel to grain 48–71 N/mm², shear 10–12.5 N/mm², cleavage 15–19 N/mm and Chalais-Meudon side hardness 10.2.

The wood is fairly easy to saw and work with machine tools, but difficult with hand tools. It may give a rough finish due to the presence of interlocked grain; a 15° cutting angle is recommended in planing. Pre-boring is needed to prevent splitting upon nailing. The wood is easy to sand, varnish and paint. It is durable, being resistant to termite attack and moderately resistant to Lyctus, but it is moderately liable to marine borer attack. It is resistant to impregnation with preservatives.

The approximate composition of ripe fruits per 100 g edible portion is: water 80 g, energy 294 kJ (70 kcal), protein 1.4 g, fat 1.0 g, carbohydrate 18 g, fibre 1.1 g, Ca 29 mg, P 142 mg, Fe 1.8 mg, β-carotene 310 μg, thiamin 0.02 mg, niacin 8 mg and ascorbic acid 74 mg.

Description

• Deciduous small tree up to 15(–20) m tall; bole branchless for up to 10 m, but usually shorter, often straight and cylindrical; bark surface fissured and scaly, pale brown to dark brown, inner bark yellow-orange; crown rounded, dense; twigs short hairy, becoming glabrous.
• Leaves arranged spirally, imparipinnately compound with 10–20 leaflets; stipules small, caducous; petiole and rachis together up to 25 cm long; petiolules up to 5 mm long; leaflets alternate to nearly opposite, oblong to oblong-elliptical or oblong-ovate, 4–7 cm × 2–3 cm, rounded to slightly notched at apex, glabrous or minutely hairy beneath, often with minute pellucid dots.
• Inflorescence an axillary raceme up to 8 cm long, densely hairy.
• Flowers bisexual or male, regular; pedicel up to 1 cm long; hypanthium bell-shaped, c. 0.5 cm long, greenish; calyx initially entire but splitting into (3–)5 reflexed lobes, greenish, short-hairy; petals absent; stamens numerous, inserted at rim of hypanthium, 2–3 cm long, whitish; ovary superior, ellipsoid, 1-celled, on a long stipe, style short.
• Fruit an ellipsoid to nearly globose, indehiscent, berry-like pod 4–8 cm × 3–6 cm, green to yellow when ripe, with stipe of c. 2 cm long, with 2–3 seeds embedded in yellowish, sticky pulp.
• Seeds oblong, c. 3 cm long, without seed coat and endosperm.

Other botanical information

Trees usually flower from the middle of the dry season to the beginning of the rainy season before the development of new leaves. In Senegal it fruits in June–July, at the beginning of the rainy season. The growth of seedlings is very slow; they are about 20 cm tall at the end of the first rainy season and 40 cm tall after 2 years.

Cordyla comprises 5 species and is restricted to mainland tropical Africa. The two species described from Madagascar have recently been transferred to a separate genus Dupuya, based on the presence of staminodes and on differences in seed morphology. Cordyla is also closely related to Mildbraediodendron. Traditionally, Cordyla is placed in Caesalpiniaceae (Leguminosae- Caesalpinioideae), but chemistry, cytology, palynology and wood anatomy support the inclusion in Papilionaceae (Leguminosae- Papilionoideae), and this is also supported by molecular studies.

The name Cordyla africana has commonly been used incorrectly for Cordyla pinnata. The true Cordyla africana Lour. is restricted to East and southern Africa. It differs in its inflorescences that usually appear together with the leaves on young shoots, less hairy flowers and less numerous, stouter, orange-yellow stamens.

Ecology

Cordyla pinnata occurs in dry forest, woodland and savanna, in regions with an annual rainfall of 600–1500 mm. In parkland savanna in Senegal it is the dominant woody species, with as other major tree species Lannea acida A.Rich., Anogeissus leiocarpa (DC.) Guill. & Perr. and Tamarindus indica L. In this parkland, the soils are characterized by much sand (about 84%), little loam (8%), little organic matter (0.8%) and poor water holding capacity. Cordyla pinnata grows better on alluvial soils.

Management

The 1000-seed weight is about 10.4 kg. The germination rate of fresh seed is close to 100%. The seeds have a moisture content of about 50%, and the loss of viability is rapid when the moisture content drops below 30%; seeds do not germinate at all when it is below 24%. In storage at –5°C, seed longevity does not exceed 5 days. Survival is best at 15°C, with still a germination rate of nearly 50% after 2 months of storage, but 0% after 3 months. Sowing is done in plastic bags or in nursery beds in the shade, which is progressively reduced, and removed 3 weeks after germination. Some weeks before transplanting the roots should be trimmed. Because seedlings do not coppice, they are very sensitive to fire and browsing. Although seedlings may be very abundant at the beginning of the rainy season, regeneration is often very poor. In tests in Senegal, inoculation with the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Glomus aggregatum showed positive effects on seedling growth.

In Senegal Cordyla pinnata is locally the dominant tree species in a parkland vegetation, comprising more than 60% of the woody plants. This is a traditional agroforestry system, which exists for many generations. Millet and groundnut are the major crops, and the litter of Cordyla pinnata increases soil fertility and modifies crop yield. In this parkland the mean height of the Cordyla pinnata trees is 12 m and the average bole diameter 48 cm.

Fruits should be picked before they are fully ripe because they rot rapidly. Fresh or cooked fruit pulp is often dried and kept in storage. Dry fruits are put in water for some time and then cooked. Dried pulp is used for cakes. Fresh fruits can be made into jam.

Genetic resources

In general Cordyla pinnata is considered not liable to genetic erosion because it is widespread and locally common, but locally it is over-exploited. In 1990 the Centre National de Recherches Forestières (Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles) initiated a domestication programme for the principal fruit-producing and multipurpose forest trees of Senegal, including Cordyla pinnata.

Prospects

The wood of Cordyla pinnata will remain important for local applications. It is a highly valued tree in traditional agroforestry systems in West Africa, which deserve protection. It is a true multipurpose tree, not only yielding wood but also edible fruits and traditional medicines. Cordyla pinnata has been suggested for planting in the Sahel and Sahelo-Soudanian regions for reafforestation. It deserves more research on silviculture, particularly concerning natural regeneration and growth, and on selection of productive fruit trees.

Major references

• Arbonnier, M., 2004. Trees, shrubs and lianas of West African dry zones. CIRAD, Margraf Publishers Gmbh, MNHN, Paris, France. 573 pp.

• 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.

• Burkill, H.M., 1995. The useful plants of West Tropical Africa. 2nd Edition. Volume 3, Families J–L. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom. 857 pp.

• Huxham, S.K., Schrire, B.D., Davis, S.D, & Prendergast, H.D.V., 1998. Dryland legumes in Africa: food for thought. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom. 84 pp.

• Takahashi, A., 1978. Compilation of data on the mechanical properties of foreign woods (part 3) Africa. Shimane University, Matsue, Japan. 248 pp.

Other references

• Bâ, M., Plenchette, C., Danthu, P., Duponnois, R. & Guissou, T., 2000. Functional compatibility of two arbuscular mycorrhizae with thirteen fruit trees in Senegal. Agroforestry Systems 50(2): 95–105.

• Busson, F., 1965. Plantes alimentaires de l’ouest Africain: étude botanique, biologique et chimique. Leconte, Marseille, France. 568 pp.

• Danthu, P., Guèye, A., Boye, A., Bauwens, D. & Sarr, A., 2000. Seed storage behaviour of four Sahelian and Sudanian tree species (Boscia senegalensis, Butyrospermum parkii, Cordyla pinnata and Saba senegalensis). Seed Science Research 10(2): 183–187.

• Kirkbride, J.H., 2005. Dupuya, a new genus of Malagasy Legumes (Fabaceae). Novon 15(2): 305–314.

• Leung, W.-T.W., Busson, F. & Jardin, C., 1968. Food composition table for use in Africa. FAO, Rome, Italy. 306 pp.

• Neuwinger, H.D., 2000. African traditional medicine: a dictionary of plant use and applications. Medpharm Scientific, Stuttgart, Germany. 589 pp.

• Samba, S.A.N., 2001. Effet de la litière de Cordyla pinnata sur les cultures: approche experimentale en agroforesterie. Annals of Forest Science 58(1): 99–107.

• Samba, S.A.N., Camiré, C. & Margolis, H.A., 2001. Allometry and rainfall interception of Cordyla pinnata in a semi-arid agroforestry parkland, Senegal. Forest Ecology and Management 154: 277–288.

• SEPASAL, 2011. Cordyla pinnata. [Internet] Survey of Economic Plants for Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (SEPASAL) database. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom. http://www.kew.org/ ceb/sepasal/. February 2011.

• Vivien, J. & Faure, J.J., 1996. Fruitiers sauvages d’Afrique: espèces du Cameroun. Ministère Français de la Coopération, Paris, France & CTA, Wageningen, Netherlands. 416 pp.

Author(s)

• N. Nyunaï, Institut de Recherches Médicales et d’Etudes des Plantes Médicinales, B.P. 3805, Yaoundé, Cameroon

Correct citation of this article

Nyunaï, N., 2011. Cordyla pinnata (Lepr. ex A.Rich.) Milne-Redh. [Internet] Record from PROTA4U. Lemmens, R.H.M.J., Louppe, D. & Oteng-Amoako, A.A. (Editors). PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa / Ressources végétales de l’Afrique tropicale), Wageningen, Netherlands.

Accessed 18 December 2024.

• See the Prota4U database.