Improving Rural Livelihoods through Domestication of Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Parklands of the Sahel - Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: Domestication, Utilization and Commercialization - page 201

Appendix

Table A10.1. Common indigenous trees that farmers cultivate for food and other uses in
parklands of the West African Sahel.

Scientific, English and
French names

Uses

Adansonia digitata Food (milk substitute and cream from fruit pulp; condiment for

Baobab sauces from leaves), medicine (fruit pulp and seed to treat

Baobab anorexia), cordage (from bark), glue (from gum), pottery

preparation (wood for firing pots), soil fertility (branches for mulch)

Balanites aegyptiaca Firewood, fodder (from leaves), food (cooked seeds, fruit pulp), oil

Desert date (from seed), soap (from oil in seed and bark), medicine (oil from

Dattier du désert seed to treat ear inflammation and dermatitis, fruit pulp to treat

constipation and joint pain), live fence/fodder bank, dead fence

Bombax costatum Food (flower sepals for sauce, high-quality honey from flowers),

Red flowered silk cotton household items (wood for floors, stools, chairs, window trim,

Kapokier rouge basins for feeding animals, masks), fibre (from fruit for

mattresses, cushions and cotton replacement for clothing), fodder
(from leaves at end of dry season)

Borassus aethiopum Food (immature seeds, immature shoot, fruit juice, wine from

Fan palm sap), fibre (bath sponge from petiole, fans, house mats, baskets,

Rônier hats, furniture from leave), medicine (juice from fruit to kill

intestinal parasites), construction (poles and boards from stem),
dune fixation and soil conservation (fibre mats from leaves)

Boscia senegalensis Food (fresh fruit, seeds), medicine (several medicines, including

- treatment of bilharzias, syphilis and intestinal parasites, and as

Boscia du Sénégal purgative, tranquillizer)

Ceiba pentandra Condiments (flower sepals for sauce, seeds), fibre (from fruit for

Silk cotton cushions and mattresses), household items (wood for floors,

Fromager stools, chairs, window trim, basins for feeding animals, masks),

canoes (wood from stem), medicine (host for parasitic plant
( Tapinanthus pentagonia ) that is used for several medicines)

Cordyla pinnata Food (pulp from mature fruit), household items (wood for mortars

- and pestles, handles for tools)

Poire du Cayor
Detarium microcarpum

Food (pulp eaten raw or cooked, processed into cakes, couscous

- preparation), drinks (juice, alcoholic beverage), firewood and

Detar charcoal (good quality wood, fuel wood), household items (leaves

to thatch roofs, tool handles, seed used as necklaces), medicine
(medicines extracted from seeds, fruits, leaves, roots, bark used
to treat more than 20 different diseases)

Diospyros mespiliformis High-value wood (for furniture, masks, etc.), food (fresh fruit),

Ebony medicine (broth from leaves to relieve fever, powder from fruit to

Ébenier treat gastric ulcers and haemorrhoids), pottery preparation

(extract from fruit for metallic finish)

Continued