Psydrax parviflora (PROTA)

Plant Resources of Tropical Africa Introduction

List of species

General importance
Geographic coverage Africa
Geographic coverage World
Fruit
Carbohydrate / starch
Medicinal
Timber
Fuel
Auxiliary plant
Food security

Psydrax parviflora (Afzel.) Bridson

Protologue: Kew Bull. 40: 700 (1985).

Family: Rubiaceae

Synonyms

Canthium rubrocostatum Robyns (1929), Canthium vulgare (K.Schum.) Bullock (1932).

Origin and geographic distribution

Psydrax parviflora is widespread from Senegal eastward to Ethiopia and Kenya, and southward to Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Uses

In Kenya the wood is sometimes used for joinery, interior trim, furniture and implements, and in Tanzania in boat construction. It is suitable for construction, flooring, mine props, railway sleepers, ladders, sporting goods, agricultural implements, tool handles, draining boards, pattern making, turnery, veneer and plywood. It is also used as firewood and for charcoal production.

Ripe fruits are eaten fresh. Preparations of leaves and flowers are applied against lice. Root decoctions are taken as anthelmintic and tonic. Fruit extracts are administered against cough and influenza. Unknown parts of the plants have been used to prepare medicine to treat rheumatism, oedema and sores. Psydrax parviflora is occasionally planted as ornamental shade tree. The flowers are visited by honey bees.

Production and international trade

The wood is only used locally and not traded on the international timber market. The fruits are not marketed.

Properties

The heartwood is pale brown to dark brown, often with a purplish tinge, and indistinctly demarcated from the paler sapwood. The grain is straight, texture fine and even. The wood is moderately heavy, with a density of 720–800 kg/m³ at 12% moisture content, and hard. It dries well and rapidly, with only occasional surface and end splitting. The rates of shrinkage are moderate. Once dry, the wood is fairly stable in service.

The wood saws and works moderately well with both hand and machine tools. It is quite brittle. It holds nails and screws satisfactorily and polishes, stains and glues well. It has good turning properties and can be made into good-quality veneer. The wood is moderately durable. The heartwood is very resistant to impregnation with preservatives.

Botany

Evergreen or semi-deciduous shrub or small to medium-sized tree up to 25(–30) m tall; bole straight, up to 60 cm in diameter, sometimes fluted; bark surface slightly fissured or cracked, pale grey to brown, inner bark cream-yellow with orange flecks or darker layers, with a smell of almond; twigs usually angular, glabrous. Leaves opposite, simple and entire; stipules triangular, 2–7 mm long; petiole up to 1 cm long; blade elliptical to ovate, 5.5–15.5 cm × 2–8 cm, rounded to cuneate at base, acuminate at apex, leathery, glabrous, pinnately veined with 4–8 pairs of lateral veins. Inflorescence an axillary umbel-like cyme 2–6 cm wide, short-hairy, many-flowered; peduncle up to 2 cm long. Flowers bisexual, regular, 4-merous; pedicel up to 1 cm long; calyx up to 2.5 mm long, with lobes shorter or longer than the tube, glabrous to short-hairy; corolla whitish, tube 2–3 mm long, hairy inside, lobes 1.5–2.5 mm long; stamens inserted at corolla throat, reflexed; ovary inferior, 2-celled, style slender, up to 8 mm long. Fruit a 2-lobed drupe 0.5–1 cm × 1–1.5 cm, black when ripe; stones 2, 0.5–1 cm in diameter, each 1-seeded. Seeds finely reticulate.

Psydrax parviflora is variable and 4 different subspecies have been distinguished. The fruits are eaten by birds, which disperse the seeds. Duiker antelopes have been reported to eat the leaves.

Psydrax comprises about 100 species and occurs in the tropics of Asia and Africa, with approximately 35 species in Africa. It is related to Canthium and Keetia.

The wood of several other Psydrax spp. is used in tropical Africa for similar purposes as that of Psydrax parviflora, but most of these are more important for their use in traditional medicine.

The wood of Psydrax faulknerae Bridson is used in Kenya for building poles. Psydrax faulknerae is a shrub or small tree up to 7 m tall, occurring in woodland and thickets in south-eastern Kenya and eastern Tanzania.

The yellowish brown to reddish brown, heavy and hard wood of Psydrax obovata (Klotzsch ex Eckl. & Zeyh.) Bridson (synonym: Canthium obovatum Klotzsch ex Eckl. & Zeyh.) is used in South Africa in house building, for main posts but also for wall laths and roof laths. Psydrax obovata prevents erosion in coastal dunes. It is a shrub or small tree up to 15 m tall, occurring in coastal forest, mixed evergreen rainforest and woodland in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.

Ecology

In West Africa Psydrax parviflora is found in dry forest and gallery forest in savanna regions, but in East Africa it occurs in humid lowland forest and rainforest in the mountains up to 2000(–2800) m altitude. In southern Africa it is found in evergreen rainforest and woodland up to 2000 m altitude, sometimes on termite mounds. In Ghana trees of all size classes are more abundant in forest that is regularly burned than in undisturbed forest.

Management

In Tanzania ripe fruits are collected in January–May. Psydrax parviflora is rarely planted, but can be propagated by seed.

Genetic resources

Psydrax parviflora is very widespread and locally common, and not subject to genetic erosion. However, two of the subspecies have restricted areas of distribution in montane forest, and might be more easily liable to habitat degradation.

Prospects

Psydrax parviflora is valuable as a multipurpose tree, providing wood for local applications but also edible fruits and ingredients for traditional medicine. More research is needed on its wood properties and pharmacological activities, and to explore its possibilities for use in agroforestry systems.

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.

* Bridson, D.M., 1985. The reinstatement of Psydrax (Rubiaceae, subfam. Cinchonoideae tribe Vanguerieae) and a revision of the African species. Kew Bulletin 40(4): 687–725.

* Bridson, D., 1998. Rubiaceae (tribe Vangueriaea). In: Pope, G.V. (Editor). Flora Zambesiaca. Volume 5, part 2. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom. 377 pp.

* Chikamai, B.N., Githiomi, J.K., Gachathi, F.N. & Njenga, M.G., undated. Commercial timber resources of Kenya. Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI), Nairobi, Kenya. 164 pp.

* Ruffo, C.K., Birnie, A. & Tengnäs, B., 2002. Edible wild plants of Tanzania. Technical Handbook No 27. Regional Land Management Unit/ SIDA, Nairobi, Kenya. 766 pp.

Other references

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

* Burkill, H.M., 1997. The useful plants of West Tropical Africa. 2nd Edition. Volume 4, Families M–R. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom. 969 pp.

* Coates Palgrave, K., 2002. Trees of southern Africa. 3rd Edition. Struik Publishers, Cape Town, South Africa. 1212 pp.

* Gaugris, J.Y., van Rooyen, M.W., Bothma, J. du P. & van der Linde, M.J., 2007. Hard wood utilization in buildings of rural households of the Manquakulane community, Maputaland, South Africa. Ethnobotany Research & Applications 5: 97–114.

* Hawthorne, W.D., 1995. Ecological profiles of Ghanaian forest trees. Tropical Forestry Papers 29. Oxford Forestry Institute, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. 345 pp.

* Hawthorne, W. & Jongkind, C., 2006. Woody plants of western African forests: a guide to the forest trees, shrubs and lianes from Senegal to Ghana. Kew Publishing, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom. 1023 pp.

* Lovett, J.C., Ruffo, C.K., Gereau, R.E. & Taplin, J.R.D., 2007. Field guide to the moist forest trees of Tanzania. [Internet] Centre for Ecology Law and Policy, Environment Department, University of York, York, United Kingdom. http://celp.org.uk/ projects/ tzforeco/.  April 2012.

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

* Verdcourt, B. & Bridson, D., 1991. Rubiaceae (part 3). In: Polhill, R.M. (Editor). Flora of Tropical East Africa. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands. pp. 749–957.

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

Author(s)

R.H.M.J. Lemmens

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

Correct citation of this article

Lemmens, R.H.M.J., 2012. Psydrax parviflora (Afzel.) Bridson. [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. <http://www.prota4u.org/search.asp>.

Accessed 16 September 2026.

• See the Prota4U database.