Cynometra ananta (PROTA)

Plant Resources of Tropical Africa Introduction

List of species

General importance
Geographic coverage Africa
Geographic coverage World
Timber
Conservation status

Cynometra ananta Hutch. & Dalziel

distribution in Africa (wild)

1, base of bole; 2, leafy twig; 3, flower; 4, fruit. Redrawn and adapted by Iskak Syamsudin

base of bole

slash

slash

leaves

detail of leaves

fruits

various parts of the tree (Virtual Field Herbarium)

wood in transverse section

wood in tangential section

wood in radial section

Protologue: Fl. W. trop. Afr. 1(2): 331 (1928).

Family: Caesalpiniaceae (Leguminosae - Caesalpinioideae)

Cynometra ananta is restricted to West Africa, where it occurs from Liberia east to Ghana.

The wood, known as ‘apomé’ or ‘ananta’, is suitable for heavy construction, heavy flooring, bridge building, exterior joinery, interior trim, ship building, vehicle bodies, mine props, poles, railway sleepers, sporting goods, toys, novelties, agricultural implements, pattern making and turnery.

The wood of Cynometra ananta is used locally and only rarely traded on the international market.

The heartwood is reddish brown with darker streaks, and distinctly demarcated from the 2.5–7.5 cm wide, yellowish to pinkish brown sapwood. The grain is usually interlocked, texture fine.

The wood is heavy, with a density of 910–1000 kg/m³ at 12% moisture content. It air dries slowly with a tendency of checking and end splitting. Drying should therefore be done with care. The rates of shrinkage are moderately high, from green to oven dry 5.2% radial and 9.3% tangential. Once dry, the wood is not very stable in service.

At 12% moisture content, the modulus of rupture is 126–187 N/mm², modulus of elasticity 14,700–17,840 N/mm², compression parallel to grain 72–83 N/mm², cleavage 18.5–19.5 N/mm, Janka side hardness 11,700 N, Chalais-Meudon side hardness 8.5–14.8 and Janka end hardness 12,940 N.

The wood is difficult to saw and work, and has severe blunting effect on cutting edges and saw teeth; the use of tungsten-tipped cutting edges is recommended. In planing operations a 15° cutting angle is recommended to obtain a good finish, and cutting edges should be kept sharp. Pre-boring is needed for nailing and screwing. The corrosion rate of iron and steel in the wood is high. The wood glues moderately well and can be stained and polished satisfactorily requiring little filling. It turns well. The steam bending properties are moderate. The wood is durable, being resistant to termite and Lyctus attacks, but occasionally liable to pinhole borer and longhorn beetle attacks. The heartwood is resistant to impregnation with preservatives, but the sapwood is moderately permeable.

Some imidazoline alkaloids have been isolated from the leaves.

• Evergreen medium-sized to fairly large tree up to 35(–45) m tall; bole branchless for up to 18 m, straight to twisted, often angular and knotty, up to 120 cm in diameter, with thin plank buttresses up to 3(–4.5) m high; bark surface irregularly flaking with small scales, grey with yellowish to reddish marks, inner bark fibrous, reddish, becoming reddish brown upon exposure, exuding a reddish resin; crown rounded or widely spreading, heavily branched; twigs glabrous, with lenticels.
• Leaves arranged spirally, paripinnately compound with 1 pair of leaflets; stipules triangular, c. 1 mm long, caducous; petiole 0.5–1 cm long, rounded; petiolules 2–4 mm long; leaflets opposite, sickle-shaped, 3.5–15 cm × 1–5 cm, acute to acuminate at apex, thin-leathery, glabrous.
• Inflorescence an axillary or terminal panicle up to 10 cm long, short-hairy, with densely crowded flowers; bracts small.
• Flowers bisexual, nearly regular, whitish; pedicel c. 0.5 cm long; sepals 4(–5), c. 4 mm long, reflexed; petals 5, free, obovate, 3–5 mm long; stamens 10, free, 5–7 mm long; ovary superior, c. 1 mm long, with stipe c. 0.5 mm long, hairy, 1-celled, style 3–4 mm long.
• Fruit an obliquely oblong to obovate, flat pod 8–12 cm × 4–5 cm, with short stipe, short-pointed at apex, smooth and brown, dehiscent with 2 woody, twisting valves, 1–2-seeded.
• Seeds rounded to elliptical, flat, 2–2.5 cm long, pale brown.
• Seedling with epigeal germination; hypocotyl 3–9 cm long, epicotyl 4–18 cm long; cotyledons 1.5–2.5 cm long, thick and fleshy; first 2 leaves opposite, with 2 leaflets, subsequent leaves alternate.

Cynometra comprises about 90 species and occurs in the tropical regions of the world. Approximately 25 species can be found in mainland tropical Africa and about 10 in Madagascar. Tropical Asia and tropical America have about 25 species each.

Cynometra megalophylla

Cynometra megalophylla Harms, a small to medium-sized tree up to 20 m tall with bole up to 100 cm in diameter, is also restricted to West Africa, occurring from Côte d’Ivoire east to Nigeria, mostly along rivers. Its reddish brown, heavy, hard and durable wood is used for poles, posts and frames in house building. Bark decoctions are used in traditional medicine to treat kwashiorkor, and leaf decoctions to treat measles and chickenpox. Cynometra megalophylla has been suggested to be useful for reafforestation of swampy areas.

Cynometra vogelii

Cynometra vogelii Hook.f. is a small tree up to 10(–20) m tall with bole up to 100 cm in diameter, occurring from Senegal east to Nigeria. Its reddish brown, hard wood is locally used for tool handles; it is also used as firewood. The foliage is fed to cattle. The seed is reportedly edible.

Wood-anatomical description (IAWA hardwood codes):

• Growth rings: 2: growth ring boundaries indistinct or absent.
• Vessels: 5: wood diffuse-porous; 13: simple perforation plates; 22: intervessel pits alternate; 23: shape of alternate pits polygonal; 24: intervessel pits minute (≤ 4 μm); 29: vestured pits; 30: vessel-ray pits with distinct borders; similar to intervessel pits in size and shape throughout the ray cell; 42: mean tangential diameter of vessel lumina 100–200 μm; 46: ≤ 5 vessels per square millimetre; 47: 5–20 vessels per square millimetre; 58: gums and other deposits in heartwood vessels.
• Tracheids and fibres: 61: fibres with simple to minutely bordered pits; 66: non-septate fibres present; 69: fibres thin- to thick-walled; 70: fibres very thick-walled.
• Axial parenchyma: (76: axial parenchyma diffuse); (77: axial parenchyma diffuse-in-aggregates); 80: axial parenchyma aliform; 82: axial parenchyma winged-aliform; 83: axial parenchyma confluent; 85: axial parenchyma bands more than three cells wide; (86: axial parenchyma in narrow bands or lines up to three cells wide); (89: axial parenchyma in marginal or in seemingly marginal bands); 92: four (3–4) cells per parenchyma strand; (93: eight (5–8) cells per parenchyma strand).
• Rays: 96: rays exclusively uniseriate; 97: ray width 1–3 cells; 104: all ray cells procumbent; (106: body ray cells procumbent with one row of upright and/or square marginal cells); 115: 4–12 rays per mm.
• Storied structure: (118: all rays storied); (120: axial parenchyma and/or vessel elements storied); (122: rays and/or axial elements irregularly storied).
• Mineral inclusions: 136: prismatic crystals present; 142: prismatic crystals in chambered axial parenchyma cells.

Older trees have large, widely spreading buttresses and spreading roots, making establishment on shallow soils and slopes more easy. Shedding of old leaves is immediately followed by new flushes, which are initially brilliant red. In Liberia trees flower in September–October, in Côte d’Ivoire in October–December. In Liberia, Côte d’ivoire and Ghana fruits ripen in December–January, in Côte d’Ivoire also in June–July. The fruits are explosively dehiscent, dispersing the seeds over short distances.

Cynometra ananta occurs mainly in humid evergreen forest, only occasionally in moist semi-deciduous forest. It is most abundant in regions with an annual rainfall of more than 1500 mm and a dry period of less than 4 months. It usually occurs on sandy soils, but in Côte d’Ivoire it has been recorded to prefer humid, even slightly swampy soils.

Seedlings and saplings are often abundant near mother trees. They are shade tolerant, but in Liberia it has been reported that saplings of more than 2 m tall are uncommon. It seems that regeneration is better in logged-over forest. There are about 650 seeds per kg, and the germination rate is high within 15 days after sowing.

Locally Cynometra ananta has gregarious stands and may even be semi-dominant. In forest in Liberia it has been reported to occur at an average density of 0.3 boles of more than 60 cm in diameter per ha, but locally it is much more common, in some areas having an average density of 3 large boles per ha. In Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana it is also locally abundant.

Cynometra ananta is not easy to cut because of the often large and high buttresses and the hard and heavy wood. In Ghana the recommended minimum bole diameter allowed for felling is 70 cm.

Cynometra ananta does not appear to be liable to genetic erosion at present because it occurs locally in large stands and does not seem to be subject to selective logging. However, with the ongoing fragmentation of evergreen forest in West Africa, monitoring of populations is recommended.

The hard and heavy wood and the often poor bole shape of Cynometra ananta are serious drawbacks for commercialization efforts. However, its fair regeneration rate in natural forest, and the high natural durability and high resistance to abrasion of the wood offer possibilities for commercial timber production for special purposes such as heavy-duty flooring, as long as long rotation cycles are acceptable. Research is recommended on the growth rates under favourable conditions and appropriate management systems.

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• Oteng-Amoako, A.A. (Editor), 2006. 100 tropical African timber trees from Ghana: tree description and wood identification with notes on distribution, ecology, silviculture, ethnobotany and wood uses. 304 pp.

• Taylor, C.J., 1960. Synecology and silviculture in Ghana. Thomas Nelson and Sons, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. 418 pp.

• Voorhoeve, A.G., 1979. Liberian high forest trees. A systematic botanical study of the 75 most important or frequent high forest trees, with reference to numerous related species. Agricultural Research Reports 652, 2nd Impression. Centre for Agricultural Publishing and Documentation, Wageningen, Netherlands. 416 pp.

• C. Essien, Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG), University P.O. Box 63, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana

• A.A. Oteng-Amoako, Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG), University P.O. Box 63, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana

Essien, C. & Oteng-Amoako, A.A., 2011. Cynometra ananta Hutch. & Dalziel. [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 31 May 2025.

• See the Prota4U database.