849

14: Vegetable oils and fats

Pentadesma butyracea Sabine

GUTTIFERAE

Pentadesma leucantha A. Chevalier.

African butter tree, tallow tree, kiasoso (trade name) (En). Arbre à beurre, beurre de lami (Fr).

Native to West Africa, occurring from Guinea to Cameroon. It is cultivated elsewhere in tropical Africa and other tropical regions. In South-East Asia it was successfully grown in Singapore already around 1900.

The seeds contain a brown, edible, tasteless but pleasant-smelling fat ('butter') which is used for cooking and made into an unguent for skin and hair; it is applied to kill skin parasites such as lice and mites. It is suitable for making soap, candles and margarine and has the advantage that it does not turn rancid. The butter is also incorporated into several commercial balms used for massage. In cross-section the seeds are red and have been used to adulterate true kola (Cola sp., they can easily be distinguished as the cotyledons do not differentiate as in kola). The fruits are edible when immature, becoming too hard upon ripening. Seeds also are edible when immature, turning bitter when ripe. The wood is fairly hard and heavy with a coarse structure and easy to work. There are almost no commercial applications, but poles are used for example as mine-props, for rough construction work, boat masts, canoes and fuel. The bark is used as fish poison in Ghana, a decoction as a purgative and an infusion in lotions to treat parasitic skin diseases. In Liberia the roots are used as chew-sticks and a decoction as a vermifuge.

Tree, up to 30 m tall and 75 cm in trunk diameter, sometimes with narrow buttresses or stilt roots; bole straight and slender, slash soft and brittle, light to bright red, the wound exuding a pale yellow latex; crown small with spreading branches which are slightly drooping at the end. Leaves opposite, simple, coriaceous; petiole up to 1 cm long; blade elliptical to obovate, 7—22 cm x 3—7 cm, base cuneate, margin entire, apex bluntly acute, shiny dark green, new flushes dark red. Inflorescence a panicle, up to 35 cm long, with few, large and showy, cream flowers; pedicel 2—3 cm long; sepals 5, unequal, 3—6 cm long, persistent; petals 5, ovate, 4—6 cm x 2—4 cm, imbricate; stamens numerous, grouped into 5 bundles; ovary sessile, style elongated, stigma with 5 linear lobes. Fruit a berry, ellipsoid to ovoid, up to 15 cm x 10 cm, pendulous, skin coriaceous, brown, containing 3—15 seeds embedded in yellow, greasy-juicy pulp. Seed angular, often pyramidal, 3—5 cm long, 2—3 cm thick, brown, red in cross-section, cotyledons not differentiated. Seedling with hypogeal germination. Pentadesma butyracea grows in primary and secondary forests, often in swamps. Flowering season coincides with the rainy season, main fruiting season in West Africa is October—March. Pentadesma butyracea flowers open and produce nectar at night; one of the pollinators is an African long-tongued bat (Megaloglossus woermanni). Although the fruits fall complete, the seeds are eaten by animals and natural regeneration is rather poor. Air-dried seed contains 30—40% fat which can be extracted by pounding and cooking. The major fatty acids are palmitic acid (1%), stearic acid (45%) and oleic acid (54%); the iodine value is 51. The presscake hardly contains carbohydrates and nitrogen; tannin and other substances make it unsuitable for feed or manure. Propagation is by seed and by cuttings and sapling growth is fast. Unless the butter becomes more important, Pentadesma butyracea will remain a curiosity in South-East Asia grown only in botanical gardens and parks.

[2] Adomako, D., 1977. Fatty acid composition and characteristics of Pentadesma butyracea fat extracted from Ghana seeds. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 28: 384—386.
[19] Burkill, I.H., 1966. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula. Slightly revised reprint of the 1935 edition. 2 volumes. Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Vol. 1 (A—H) pp. 1—1240, Vol. 2 (I—Z) pp. 1241—2444.
[20] Burkill, H.M., 1985—2000. The useful plants of West tropical Africa. 2nd Edition, 5 volumes. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom. Vol. 1 (1985) Families A—D, 960 pp., Vol. 2 (1994), Families E—I, 636 pp., Vol. 3 (1995), Families J—L, 857 pp., Vol. 4 (1997), Families M—R, 969 pp., Vol. 5 (2000), Families S—Z, 686 pp.
[21] Busson, F., 1965. Plantes alimentaires de l'ouest africain [Edible plants of West Africa] . Leconte, Marseille, France. 568 pp.
[132] Voorhoeve, A.G., 1979. Liberian high forest trees. Pudoc, Centre for Agricultural Publishing and Documentation, Wageningen, the Netherlands. 416 pp.

N. Wulijarni-Soetjipto & P.C.M. Jansen

Wulijarni-Soetjipto, N. & Jansen, P.C.M., 2001. Pentadesma butyracea Sabine. In: van der Vossen, H.A.M. and Umali, B.E. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 14: Vegetable oils and fats. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea