Parinari Excelsa

''Parinari excelsa'', the Guinea plum, is a species of large, evergreen tree in the family Chrysobalanaceae. It has a very wide distribution in tropical Africa and South America. This species grows to tall while the trunk is up to in diameter.

Description

''Parinari excelsa'' is a large evergreen tree with a rounded or flattened crown, reaching a height of up to . The trunk is cylindrical, or slightly sinuous, usually branchless in its lower half, with large buttresses at the base. The bark is greyish, either rough with warty lenticels, or deeply fissured and peeling away in flakes. The twigs are golden-brown and slightly hairy. The leaves are alternate, simple and entire, with small stipules and short petioles. The leaf blades are leathery, ovate or oblong-elliptical, and measure up to . They have rounded bases and tapering apexes; the upper sides are bare but the undersides are densely felted with brown or grey hairs. The inflorescence is a brownish, hairy panicle, about long, growing at the tip of a shoot or in the axil of a leaf. The individual flowers are bisexual, with five pinkish petals, and are followed by drupes, some , with fleshy pulp, which ripen to a yellowish or reddish-brown colour and contain large, hard stones.

Distribution and habitat

left, The Kouratier, an old specimen at Dalaba in Guinea, West Africa">Guinea.html" ;"title="Dalaba in Guinea">Dalaba in Guinea, West Africa
''Parinari excelsa'' is native to the forests of tropical Africa and also grows in South America. In Africa its range extends from Senegal to Sudan, and southward to Angola and Mozambique. In South America its range extends from Costa Rica southward and eastward to Bolivia, Peru and Brazil. It is a rainforest species but does not grow in the wettest locations, and is found in dry evergreen forest and gallery forests, at altitudes up to about . It sometimes springs up in clear-felled areas, often in patches growing from seeds or root suckers, and may come to dominate parts of regenerating secondary forest.

Ecology

The fruits are attractive to African elephant">elephants