Antidesma membranaceum Müll.Arg.

Species

Angiosperms > Malpighiales > Phyllanthaceae > Antidesma

Characteristics

A shrub or small tree. It grows to 5 m high. Sometimes it is 13 m high. The bark is brown and rough. Young branches are covered with brown, velvety hairs. The leaves are oval and 13 cm long by 5.5 cm wide. They are dark green and velvety above and yellowish below. It tapers to a rounded base. The flowers are yellowish-green in slender catkins 10 cm long. The female flowers are less fluffy. The fruit are berry-like and 3 mm across. They are pinkish in colour. They are clustered on long hanging stalks about 10 cm long.
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Resembling A. venosum, but with leaves more narrowly elliptic-oblong and more obviously acutely acuminate, the leaf lower surface often yellowish and with an indumentum less dense and never really tomentose except on very young leaves; the basal lateral nerves camptodromous, running further up the leaf blade at a smaller angle from the midrib; the female inflorescences never deformed; the calyx of female flowers lobed to the middle; the fruits only 3–5 × 2–3.5 mm when dried and only slightly compressed.
A shrub or tree, up to 40 ft. high
Flowers yellowish-green
Ripe fruits blackish
Life form perennial
Growth form tree
Growth support free-standing
Foliage retention evergreen
Sexuality dioecy
Pollination -
Spread -
Mature width (meter) -
Mature height (meter) 6.0
Root system -
Rooting depth (meter) -
Root diameter (meter) -
Flower color
Blooming months -
Fruit color -
Fruiting months -
Nitrogen fixer -
Photosynthetic pathway -

Environment

Mixed woodland, humid woodland and evergreen forest, also in riverine vegetation and ravines, along lakeshores and in coastal forest, at elevations from sea-level up to 1,850 metres.
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A tropical plant. It grows at low altitudes in forests near rivers. It can be in palm groves. In Nigeria it has been recorded at 400 and 600 m above sea level.
Mostly in fringing forest in the savannah regions.
Light -
Soil humidity -
Soil texture -
Soil acidity -
Soil nutriment -
Hardiness (USDA) 9-12

Usage

The fruit is eaten.
Uses environmental use material medicinal social use wood
Edible fruits
Therapeutic use -
Human toxicity -
Animal toxicity -

Cultivation

Can be grown by seedlings.
Mode seedlings
Germination duration (days) -
Germination temperacture (C°) -
Germination luminosity -
Germination treatment -
Minimum temperature (C°) -
Optimum temperature (C°) -
Size -
Vigor -
Productivity -

Distribution

Antidesma membranaceum world distribution map, present in Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Chad, Togo, Tanzania, United Republic of, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

Conservation status

Antidesma membranaceum threat status: Least Concern

Identifiers

LSID urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:338993-1
WFO ID wfo-0000237317
COL ID 5VK4G
BDTFX ID -
INPN ID -
Wikipedia (EN)
Wikipedia (FR)

Synonyms

Antidesma meiocarpum Antidesma membranaceum Antidesma membranaceum var. molle Antidesma membranaceum var. tenuifolium Antidesma venosum subsp. membranaceum