(a) IDENTIFICATION
Local
name: (Igbo): Ukwa.
Common
name: Afican bread fruit Botanical name:
Treculia africana
Family
: Moraceae.
Habitat: Rainforest.
(b) MORPHOLOGY
Habit: It is a herbaceous plant of about 2.3m tall
leaves are simple
and radial in arrangement, pinnate, broad and articulately
venated, sheathing base. Flowers are in form of spasdix, substended by a large
often brightly coloured spathe. These flowers are sessile, small, naked,
monoecious and protogynous. Stamens are six arranged in whorl with a synadrium
filament very short, anthers 2-celled, carpels 3, cannate the ovary is
superivor. The fruit is a berry and the seeds are non-endospermous.
(c) UTILIZATION
The decoction of the bark is drunk to cure cough
and also be sued as a laxative. In the male tree, the sap is known to be
caustic and toxic. The seeds are edible and are good source of vitamin C.
(d) CONSERVATION
It
is a tree plant that is cultivated in the rainforest.
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