''Baikiaea plurijuga'', known as African teak, Mukusi, Rhodesian teak, Zambian teak, or Zambesi redwood, is a species of

Afrotropical The Afrotropical realm is one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Sub-Saharan Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopi ...

tree from the

legume Legumes are plants in the pea family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seeds of such plants. When used as a dry grain for human consumption, the seeds are also called pulses. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consum ...

family, the

Fabaceae Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomen ...

from southern

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 ...

. The genus is named for

William Balfour Baikie William Balfour Baikie (27 August 182512 December 1864) was a Scottish explorer, naturalist and philologist. Biography Baikie was born at Kirkwall, Orkney, eldest son of Captain John Baikie, R.N. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, and, on obta ...

(1824-1864), a Scottish explorer of the

Niger River The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through Mali, Nige ...

, and the species name means "having many pairs."

Description

''Baikiaea plurijuga'' is a medium-sized

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

tree with pinnate leaves, each with 4-5 pairs of opposed leaflets. They show pink to deep mauve flowers, have yellow stamens, and are clustered in large axillary racemes; they flower from November to April. The fruit are flattened, woody pods with a hooked tip that splits explosively, sending the seeds out over some distance.

Habitat

''Baikiaea plurijuga'' is confined to the

Kalahari The Kalahari Desert is a large semiarid sandy savanna in Southern Africa covering including much of Botswana as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal d ...

sands, and its dominant woodland is known as Gusu woodland. This woodland grows on the deep, aeolian, and fluvial Kalahari Sands, which have virtually no clay or silt. These sands provide exceptional growing conditions for deep-rooting trees, but the deficiency in clay restricts tree growth to sites holding nutrients in organic matter.

Distribution

''Baikiaea plurijuga'' occurs in southern

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

, northern

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

, northern

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

, southern

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

, and northern

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

Uses

The wood of ''Baikiaea plurijuga'' forms a dense hardwood, making it difficult to work. Still, it is valued for its

termite Termites are a group of detritivore, detritophagous Eusociality, eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of Detritus, decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, Plant litter, leaf litter, and Humus, soil humus. They are dist ...

resistance and resistance to rot and is used for railway sleepers, construction, and furniture making. The commercial timber industry has

over-exploited Overexploitation, also called overharvesting or ecological overshoot, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to ...

extensive teak forests in some parts of its range (e.g., in

Sesheke District Sesheke District is one of the sixteen (16) districts in Western Province, Zambia, Western Province of Zambia. The capital lies at Sesheke. As of the 2022 Zambian Census, the district had a population of 72,655 people.

, Zambia). However, ''Baikiaea plurijuga'' is not listed in the CITES Appendices.

Conservation

''Baikiaea plurijuga'' is classified as Near Threatened because its forests have been considerably reduced due to high logging levels over the last half-century. Older, mature trees are also scarce. However, the species' geographic range has only diminished by a fraction as the species can regenerate readily in modified habitats and tolerates

coppicing Coppicing is the traditional method in woodland management of cutting down a tree to a tree stump, stump, which in many species encourages new Shoot (botany), shoots to grow from the stump or roots, thus ultimately regrowing the tree. A forest ...

very well. It is legally protected in

References