PROSEA Handbook Number
5(2): Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers
Taxon
Terminalia ivorensis A. Chev.
This article should be read together with the article on the genus: Terminalia in the Handbook volume indicated above in this database.
Protologue
Vég. util. Afr. trop. franç. 5: 152 (1909).
Vernacular Names
Black afara (En). Framiré (Fr).
Distribution
Native to tropical West Africa from Guinea to Cameroon; introduced in many other tropical countries as a promising timber plantation species, e.g. in South America, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Sarawak.
Uses
Terminalia ivorensis yields high-quality timber; the wood is used for e.g. fine carpentry, joinery, building, flooring and plywood manufacturing.
Observations
A large tree up to 45 m tall, bole straight, branchless for up to 30 m, up to 175 cm in diameter, if present, buttresses are short and up to 1 m high, bark surface longitudinally fissured, dark brown to blackish when old, inner bark yellow; leaves obovate to narrowly obovate, 5—10(—15) cm 2.5—4.5(—6) cm, cuneate to slightly decurrent at base, glabrous except for the main veins below, with 6—9 pairs of secondary veins, petiole 0.7—2.5 cm long; flowers in an axillary spike 7—10 cm long, calyx tube tomentose outside; fruit oblong, 5—7(—10) cm 1.5—2(—2.5) cm, densely puberulous, with 2 membranous wings. Terminalia ivorensis is found naturally in primary and secondary forest, both evergreen and semi-deciduous, up to 1200 m altitude. The density of the pale yellow to pale greenish-brown wood is 450—675 kg/m3 at 12% moisture content.
Selected Sources
[159]Fenton, R., Roper, R.E. & Watt, G.R., 1977. Lowland tropical hardwoods. An annotated bibliography of selected species with plantation potential. External Aid Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wellington. 420 pp.
[274]Jones, N., 1969. Forest tree improvement in Ghana. Commonwealth Forestry Review 48: 370–376.
[346]Lamb, A.F.A. & Ntima, O.O., 1971. Terminalia ivorensis. Fast growing timber trees of the lowland tropics No 5. Commonwealth Forestry Institute, Department of Forestry, University of Oxford. 72 pp.
[348]Lamprecht, H., 1989. Silviculture in the tropics; tropical forest ecosystems and their tree species, possibilities and methods for their long-term utilization. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, Eschborn. 296 pp
[386]Longman, K.A. & Jeník, J., 1987. Tropical forest and its environment. 2nd edition. Longman Scientific and Technical, Essex. 347 pp.
[666]van Vliet, G.J.C.M., 1979. Wood anatomy of the Combretaceae. Blumea 25: 141–223.
[681]Voorhoeve, A.G., 1965. Liberian high forest trees. Pudoc, Wageningen. 416 pp.
[712]Willan, R.L., 1985. A guide to forest seed handling with special reference to the tropics. FAO Forestry Paper 20/2. FAO, Rome. 379 pp.
Correct Citation of this Article
Sosef, M.S.M., 1995. Terminalia ivorensis A. Chev.. In: Lemmens, R.H.M.J., Soerianegara, I. and Wong, W.C. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 5(2): Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record:
prota4u.org/prosea