You Can’t Unsee this Tree!

"A Plant a Day"- Sausage Tree (Kigelia africana)-

 Sausage tree certainly stands out, as it grows a fruit that can reach 2 feet long, and hundreds can dangle from the tree looking like sausages. Although it is from tropical parts of Africa, its distribution now reaches up through India, and is a plant that has been distributed widely by humans due to its many uses. The Sausage tree is clearly an interesting ornamental with its bizarre looking fruit and its very pretty flowers—which are bell-shaped and typically maroon in color, handing down on flexible stems.

Although the fruit is poisonous if eaten when raw, it can be roasted, dried or fermented and used. The fruit and rind are used to make an alcoholic beer. And the leaves of the Sausage Tree are used to make a palm-nut soup that is popular among lactating women in sub-Saharan Africa, and in nutritional analysis has been likened to spinach. The outer casings of the fruit are also often used as vessels for transporting items, and the wood for making instruments such as yokes and oars.

Some consider this tree to be the “quintessential African traditional medicinal plant” as it has such wide distribution in Africa and is used for a wide range of conditions, such as wound healing, various skin conditions, digestive complaints and rheumatism. In scientific investigations, it has been found to possess anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antioxidant, neuroprotective, hypoglycemic, antimicrobial, antiquorum, wound healing and anticancer activity. The Sausage Tree  is also gaining popularity for use in cosmetic and skin care products. And of course, it is an aphrodisiac.

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Photo by I, Jessp