Terminalia ivorensis (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia
Introduction

Protologue: Vég. util. Afr. trop. franç. 5: 152 (1909).

Vernacular names

Black afara (En). Framiré (Fr).

Distribution

Native to tropical West Africa from Guinea to Cameroon; introduced in many other tropical countries as a promising timber plantation species, e.g. in South America, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Sarawak.

Uses

T. ivorensis yields high-quality timber; the wood is used for e.g. fine carpentry, joinery, building, flooring and plywood manufacturing.

Observations

A large tree up to 45 m tall, bole straight, branchless for up to 30 m, up to 175 cm in diameter, if present, buttresses are short and up to 1 m high, bark surface longitudinally fissured, dark brown to blackish when old, inner bark yellow; leaves obovate to narrowly obovate, 5-10(-15) cm × 2.5-4.5(-6) cm, cuneate to slightly decurrent at base, glabrous except for the main veins below, with 6-9 pairs of secondary veins, petiole 0.7-2.5 cm long; flowers in an axillary spike 7-10 cm long, calyx tube tomentose outside; fruit oblong, 5-7(-10) cm × 1.5-2(-2.5) cm, densely puberulous, with 2 membranous wings. T. ivorensis is found naturally in primary and secondary forest, both evergreen and semi-deciduous, up to 1200 m altitude. The density of the pale yellow to pale greenish-brown wood is 450-675 kg/m³at 12% moisture content.

Selected sources

159, 274, 346, 348, 386, 666, 681, 712.