''Cordia africana'' or Sudan teak is a mid-sized, white-flowered, evergreen tree in the

borage Borage ( or ; ''Borago officinalis''), also known as starflower, is an annual herb in the flowering plant family Boraginaceae native to the Mediterranean region. Although the plant contains small amounts of pyrrolizidine alkaloids, some parts ar ...

family (

Boraginaceae Boraginaceae, the Borago, borage or forget-me-not family, includes about 2,000 species of shrubs, trees, and herbs in 146 to 154 genus, genera with a worldwide distribution. The APG IV system from 2016 classifies the Boraginaceae as single famil ...

), native to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. It produces edible fruit, and its wood is used for drums or other carpentry.

Uses

''Cordia africana'' has been used in the manufacture of drums. The Akan Drum which is now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

was identified as being of African manufacture because it was found to be made from this tree. It is also sometime called ''Sudan Teak'' and has been used for flooring, high-quality furniture, window making, interior decking. The wood can be used to manufacture beehives which can be kept in this tree where the bees can live off the plentiful supply of nectar which comes from the flowers. In addition the tree supplies leaves for forage and an edible fruit. In

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

, where the tree is known in

Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...

as ''wanza'', the hearth of a fire-stick was traditionally made therefrom for lighting fires.

References

Gallery

External links

alliodora Myrmecophytes Trees of Africa Fruits originating in Africa Plants described in 1792 Trees of Ethiopia {{Boraginaceae-stub