Common Name: Cocoyams, Arrowroots
Description
Xanthosoma is a genus of flowering plants in the arum family, Araceae. The genus is native to tropical America but widely cultivated and naturalized in other tropical regions. Several are grown for their starchy corms, an important food staple of tropical regions, known variously as malanga, otoy, otoe, cocoyam (or new cocoyam), tannia, tannier, yautía, macabo, ocumo, macal, taioba, dasheen, quequisque, ape and (in Papua New Guinea). . . . .Read more
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Meet the crops
Tamarindus indica
Common Name: Tamarind
Description
Tamarindus indica is a large evergreen tree up to 30 m tall, bole usually 1-2 m, up to 2 m diameter; crown dense, widely spreading, rounded; bark rough, fissured, greyish-brown.
Leaves alternate, compound, with 10-18 pairs of opposite leaflets; leaflets narrowly oblong, 12-32 x 3-11 mm, petiole and rachis finely haired, midrib and net veining more or less conspicuous on both surfaces; apex rounded to almost square, slightly notched; base rounded, asymmetric, with a tuft of yellow hairs; margin entire, fringed with fine hairs. Stipules present, falling very early.…Read more
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Diospyros mespiliformis
Common Name:African persimmon
Description
Diospyros mespiliformis is a tall, evergreen tree 15-50 m high, with dense, rounded and buttressed stem. Bark grey-black or black, smooth in young trees rough with small regular scales in older trees, pinkish when slashed. Young branchlets are green, tomentellous with pinkish-white hairs, glabrescent later. Crown is very branchy with dense foliage.
Leaves alternate, shiny-green above, paler beneath, 4-7 cm long, 1.5-5.5 cm wide, oblong elliptic or oblolanceolate-elliptic, rarely lanceolate-elliptic, pubescent when young later becoming glabrescent or with few persistent, appressed hairs beneath, acute or subacuminate . .…Read more
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Parkia biglobosa
Common Name:Locust bean, néré
Description
Parkia biglobosa is a perennial deciduous tree with a height ranging from 7 to 20 m, although it can reach 30 m under exceptional conditions. Crown large, spreads wide with branches low down on a stout bole; amber gum exudes from wounds; bark dark grey brown, thick, fissured.
Leaves alternate, dark green, bipinnate to 30 cm long, pinnae up to 17 pairs with 13-60 pairs of leaflets, 8-30 mm x 1.5-8 mm, of distinctive shape and venation. Leaflets held on a long rachis. …Read more
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