The Bark is grey, with all shades of purple and a sheen. It has great callus-growing properties and appears vigorously alive in its power to cover up wounds. The outer bark is soft, spongy and full of sap, and it is the inner layers which are stripped off for the rope making. The slash is mottled red and white.
The Wood is not used. It is very light, soft and crumbling, rotting rapidly under exposure.
The Leaves are digitate with some six or seven lobes, 2-3 inches long, borne on a 4-5 inch leaf-stalk. They have sinuous margins and a tongued tip; the mid-rib is sunken and the veins regular. The surface is dark green above and smooth, but downy beneath. The leaves appear soon after the flowers.
The Flowers are solitary and pendulous on 9-10 inch stalks, and appear in May before the leaves. They are some 6-8 inches in diameter with five leathery sepals covered densely on the inside with straight hairs; five white petals nearly twice the length of the sepals, recurved at the tip and with wrinkled edges; a stout, shiny, white, tubular stamen column from which the mass of white stamens with light brown anthers radiate and bend up towards the vertical position and from which emerges the long shiny white pistil with spiral bend and outward growth, bearing at its tip the flattened, lobed, sticky stigma. All the flower parts tend to assume the vertical position. The Hausa calls them “kumbali.”
The Fruits are large, oval or round, 5-15 inches long and 3-7 inches in diameter, covered with brittle, bronze hairs which break off when handled. The stalk is long and stout and the calyx remains at the base are broken and hardened. There is a short woody “nose.” A number of kidney-shaped seeds are embedded in a white, crisp, acid and slightly refrigerant pulp, pleasant to taste when fresh, and fibres separate the rows of seeds. The seeds are grey with a brown patch, intricately veined. They are very hard. The pulp is called “garin kuka,” the seeds “guntsu.”
Uses.—The leaves are used as a sauce in soup and food, called “Miyan (or) Garin Kuka.” They are given also, with bran and salt as a horse medicine, called “chusar doki.”
The inner bark is stripped and twisted into strong ropes “kista,” tethering ropes “gindi,” and strings of musical instruments. The acid pulp is eaten fresh.
ADINA MICROCEPHALA Hiern.—Kadanyar rafi. RUBIACEAE.