African Corkwood Tree

Musanga cecropioides R. Brown

(Syn. M. smithii R. Brown)

Local name: Odwuma (Ghana), also known as umbrella tree or corkwood

A small- to medium-sized, erect tree up to about 90 ft high. Girth over 6 ft above roots. Common on old farms in closed forest. Natural regeneration is prolific, often gregarious. Odwuma is of rapid growth and has stilt or prop roots. Branches are spreading, the crown umbrella-like. Buds are enclosed in large, red, hairy, and deciduous stipular sheaths up to 8 in long. Leaves are alternate, 18 × 4 in, grayish and hairy below, deeply digitately lobed, acuminate at tip, with the base cuneate. Petiole up to about 24 in long, brown, tomentose, with numerous lateral nerves. Flowers inconspicuous. Fruits succulent, green.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.—The timber is very light. There is no distinction between sapwood and heartwood, the color being pinkish white throughout. Information on seasoning and other qualities is lacking. It is perishable.

USES.—It is used instead of cork to serve as rafts or floats. It is used for temporary walls, isothermic ceilings, and inferior roofing shingles. Charcoal made from this tree is used as a floor polish (Irvine, 1961). Musanga species have very long fibers with thin walls and are, therefore, considered suitable for papermaking.

XYLEM ANATOMY.—Growth rings are absent. This wood is diffuse-porous. Vessels are usually solitary, occasionally in pairs, circular in outline. Average pore diameter 28μm, range 9μm–34μm; vessel wall thickness averages 4μm; average vessel element length 535μm, range 388μm–688μm. Fiber tracheids, average length 535μm, range 350μm–1225μm. The wood is storied. Pits of tracheids are very tiny and without pattern of distribution. Perforation plates of vessels are simple and transverse. Pits on vessel walls are bordered and arranged both oppositely and alternately. Vascular rays are heterogeneous, mainly multiseriate, although some are uniseriate. Rays are 250μm–850μm tall and 15μm–50μm wide. Axial parenchyma is scanty and anatracheid-vasicentric. Crystals are rhomboidal and found in rays.

Musanga cecropioides, the African corkwood tree or umbrella tree, is found in tropical Africa from Sierra Leone south to Angola and east to Uganda. It is typical in secondary forests.

This tree is also known as parasolier, n'govoge, govwi, doe, kombo-kombo, musanga, and musanda.