Common Name:Balanites
Description
Balanites aegyptiaca is a multibranched, spiny shrub or tree up to l0 m high. Crown rounded, dense (but still seen through) with long stout branchlets. Trunk and bark grey, deeply fissured longitudinally.
Leaves compound and spirally arranged on the shoots, dark green with 2 firm coriaceous leaflets; dimensions and shapes varying widely. Petiole canaliculate, from 5 mm to 20 mm with a short rachis. Most accounts indicate a maximum length of 8 mm for Uganda. Margin of each leaflet entire; lamina generally up to 6 cm long, 4 cm broad, although apparently smaller (1-3 x 0.3-1.5 cm) in the Sahara and in Palestine..…Read more
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Meet the crops
Opuntia monacantha
Common Name:Prickly pear
Description
Opuntia monacantha, commonly known as drooping prickly pear, cochineal prickly pear, or Barbary fig, is a species of plant in the Cactaceae family. It is native to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay and is naturalised in Australia and South Africa. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and sandy shores.
The species was first formally described in 1812 by botanist Adrian Haworth in Synopsis Plantarum Succulentarum. The name Opuntia vulgaris, which is a synonym of Opuntia ficus-indica, has been misapplied to this species in Australia.Read more
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Musa balbisiana
Common Name: Bananas
Description
Musa balbisiana is a species of wild banana native to eastern South Asia, northern Southeast Asia, and southern China. It is one of the ancestors of modern cultivated bananas, along with Musa acuminata. It was first scientifically described in 1820 by the Italian botanist Luigi Aloysius Colla. It grows lush leaves in clumps with a more upright habit than most cultivated bananas. Flowers grow in inflorescences coloured red to maroon. The fruit are between blue and green. They are considered inedible because of the seeds they contain. It may be assumed that wild bananas were cooked and eaten or agriculturalists would not have developed the cultivated banana. Seeded Musa balbisiana fruit are called butuhan (‘with seeds’) in the Philippines, and kluai tani in Thailand. Natural parthenocarpic clones occur through polyploidy and produce edible bananas, examples of which are wild saba bananas. . . . .Read more
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Brassica carinata
Common Name: Ethiopia Mustard
Description
Brassica carinata (Ethiopian rape,Ethiopian mustard, Abyssinian mustard) is a member of the Triangle of U species (U, 1935) in the agriculturally significant Brassica genus. It has 34 chromosomes with genome composition BBCC, and is thought to result from an ancestral hybridisation event between Brassica nigra (genome composition BB) and Brassica oleracea (genome composition CC) (Prakash and Hinata, 1980). Although B. carinata is cultivated as an oilseed crop in Ethiopia (Alemayehu and Becker, 2004), it has generally high levels of undesirable glucosinolates and erucic acid (Getinet et al. 1997), making it a poor choice for general cultivation as an oilseed crop in comparison to the closely related Brassica napus (Rapeseed) . . . .Read more
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