| DESCRIPTION: It is a straight-stemmed tree reaching 3-14 m in height, with a smooth, green or yellowish-white, powdery bark. Fruits globose, 6-10 cm in diameter, with a hard rind, glabrous, bluish-green when young, yellowish or orange when ripe, with a thick woody shell, containing many seeds embedded in a yellowish pulp. USE: The sweet-sour fruit pulp is edible. Leaves are eaten by livestock. Provides excellent firewood that burns even when wet. A mixture of ground roots and oil is rubbed on the skin as a fly repellent. A root decoction is taken as a remedy for gonorrhoea; fresh roots are used to treat snakebite. The bark and twigs are pounded, soaked in cold water and the infusion drunk to facilitate birth. The fruit pulp is used as a remedy for dysentery and as eardrops. Seeds have emetic properties. GROWING PERIOD: Perennial. COMMON NAMES: monkey orange, wild orange. FURTHER INF: It occurs in savannah forests all over tropical Africa in open woodland and rocky hills on light yellowish-brown to reddish-yellow, gritty sandy clay loams derived from granite and granodiorite rocks. |