Cussonia arborea Hochst. ex A.Rich.

Araliaceae, J. R. Tennant. Flora of Tropical East Africa. 1968

Habit

A tree up to 13 m. tall, with a bole up to 1 m. or more in diameter; bark thick and fissured, dark grey to reddish-grey.

Leaves

Leaves simple, deeply palmately lobed or digitately compound with sessile leaflets; petiole up to 45 cm. or longer and 8 mm. diameter, at first tomentose becoming tomentulose or subglabrous; leaflets or leaf-lobes 5–7, chartaceous to coriaceous, lanceolate to oblanceolate, ovate and obovate, sometimes rotund, up to 26 cm. long by 16 cm. wide, (1.2–)1.5–2.5 times as long as wide, acuminate to retuse at apex, cuneate to attenuate at base, with the margins crenate to serrulate (or subentire), occasionally irregularly so, velutinous above, tomentose below when young, becoming sparsely scabrid above and pubescent beneath (or occasionally entirely subglabrous) when mature.

Inflorescences

Flowering spikes up to about 20 together, mostly less than 10, up to 40 cm. long, sometimes galled (see note on p. 1); floral bracts narrowly lanceolate to broadly ovate, occasionally orbicular, often caudate, up to 5 mm. long, but sometimes obsolete except for tail, puberulous to densely pubescent.

Fruits

Fruits 3.5–4.5(–6.0) mm. long, glabrous or puberulous.

Figures

Fig. 1.

Habitat

Woodland, grouped-tree grassland; 300–2470 m.

Distribution

K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 T1 T2 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 U1 U3

Araliaceae, J. F. M. Cannon. Flora Zambesiaca 4. 1978

Habit

Robust tree up to 11 m.

Leaves

Leaves digitately compound (palmate in juvenile states) Petiole up to 50(87) cm. long, usually glabrous but sometimes somewhat puberulent in patches.

Leaflets

Leaflets 5–9(10), up to 27 × 8 cm., sessile but with long, very narrowly tapering cuneate bases, chartaceous to somewhat coriaceous, glabrous or with occasional hairs; apex acute to acuminate; margins more or less regularly serrate-crenate to more or less entire, rarely deeply and jaggedly cut.

Inflorescences

Flowering spikes up to 26 together, but frequently of c. 10–12, at first short and congested, but elongating as the flowers mature, and further as the fruit develop, up to 50 cm. in length. Axis of the spike densely puberulous; basal bracts broadly triangular.

Flowers

Flowers sessile with floral bracts that are conspicuous in the unexpanded spikes, but insignificant and more or less caducous before maturity.

Stylopodium

Stylopodium quite well developed; stigmatic surfaces very small, scarcely freely diverging at the tip.

Fruits

Fruit ovoid-cylindrical to subglobose, 4–5·5 × up to 4 mm., glabrous or more rarely puberulous.

Araliaceae, J. R. Tennant. Flora of Tropical East Africa. 1968

Habit

A tree to 11 m. tall with a bole of up to 0.75 m. diameter; bark deeply fissured and corky.

Leaves

Leaves digitately compound (occasionally not quite completely so); petiole up to 87 cm. long and 9 mm. diameter, but usually much smaller, mostly glabrous or somewhat hairy in places; leaflets 5–9(–10), sessile, chartaceous to coriaceous, lanceolate to oblanceolate, ovate and obovate, up to 23 cm. long by 10.5 cm. wide, (1¾–)2½–5½ times as long as wide, caudate to obtuse, very rarely emarginate, with a narrowly cuneate to much attenuated base, with crenate to serrate or virtually entire margins, glabrous or with scattered short hairs.

Inflorescences

Flowering spikes up to about 26 together, but mostly less than 12, up to 46 cm. long, sometimes galled (see note on p. 1); floral bracts similar to those of C. arborea.

Fruits

Fruits 4.0–5.5 (–7.0) mm. long, glabrous or puberulous.

Araliaceae, Hutchinson and Dalziel. Flora of West Tropical Africa 1:2. 1958

Habit

A deciduous savannah tree; leaves and flower-spikes clustered at the ends of the thick branches

Flowers

Flowers greenish-white

Fruits

Ripe fruits whitish.