The Flowers are in terminal racemes from 3-9 inches long, all parts except the petals covered with the hairs. Each flower has a 5-lobed calyx, 5 white petals in 2 groups of 3 and 2, 10-20 white stamens with yellow anthers and a curved, white pistil. The flower in bud is enclosed in 2 bracts which are pushed up by expansion of the flower and then fall off the end. The flowers are found on the tree every month of the year, a continual succession of flowers and fruit occurring.
The Fruits, which are found all the year round, are plums, reddish-brown with an orange tint, rounded or oblong, 1½-2 inches long and 1-1½ inches broad, the surface roughened with numerous grey lenticels. The sweet, edible flesh is whitish, moist and mealy, about ½ inch thick round the very tough, thick stone which has one or two “kernels.” The ripe fruit has a sickly sweet smell.
Uses.—The wood of large specimens makes very good mortars.
The fruits are highly appreciated and eaten fresh. They are brought to the big towns from long distances in some places and will sell for as much as a penny each in the markets.
PARKIA FILICOIDEA Welw.—Dorowa. “Locust Bean Tree.” LEGUMINOSAE.
This is the type tree of the Park formations and a very common and well-known species with a wide distribution. Owing to its great value as a food and its uses by the natives, it is often the sole occupant of extensive areas of cultivation. It grows to large sizes, 50-60 feet high with girths of 10 feet or more. The bole, in the case of trees which are grown in the open, is short, not, as a rule, above 10 or 12 feet, and several large, spreading limbs form a very wide crown which appears dark and dense at a distance, but which, in fact, gives only average shade. There are small, rounded root-flanges. All trees near habitation are owned by the individual. Those in the forests have a different habit of growth, the bole being longer, the branches more erect and the crown less spreading. The large crowns of the park trees are generally due to the cutting of the branches for fuel. See Uses. The tree pollards well and shoots readily from the stool. It is liable to attack from white ants when young, and to the ravages of caterpillars which may completely defoliate the tree.
The Bark is dark brown or dull grey, with small, regular scales of varying roughness. The branches and the stems of young trees are a light grey, almost silvery, and smooth. The bark at the base of the tree is often much chipped about by the natives who make an infusion of it, drunk as a tonic. The slash is brick red, spongy and fibrous in thin layer formation.
The Wood. The heartwood is a dull brown colour, the sapwood a dirty yellow. Even the largest stems, 3-4 feet in diameter, cut in the north, show none of this heartwood. In transverse section the rings are faint and wide apart, the pores are large, open, fairly regularly distributed in the well-marked soft tissue festoons, with nests of 3 or 4 here and there. The rays are straight, continuous, evenly spaced, not all the same thickness, and show as long, light-reflecting bands in radial section. In vertical section the grain is fairly open, the hard and soft tissue giving a mottled appearance in tangential section. The wood is most easily worked with all tools, planes with a dull finish and though liable to crack a little is on the whole a sound, though weak, timber. The weight is only 32 lbs. a cubic foot.