Afzelia

 Afzelia is a genus of plants in family Fabaceae. The thirteen species all are trees, native to tropical Africa or Asia.

Afzelia
Afzelia africana MHNT.BOT.2004.0.227.jpg
Afzelia africana fruit and seed - MHNT
Scientific classificatione
Kingdom:Plantae
Clade:Tracheophytes
Clade:Angiosperms
Clade:Eudicots
Clade:Rosids
Order:Fabales
Family:Fabaceae
Subfamily:Detarioideae
Tribe:Afzelieae
Genus:Afzelia
Species
  • Afzelia africana
  • Afzelia bella
  • Afzelia bipindensis
  • Afzelia bracteata
  • Afzelia pachyloba
  • Afzelia palembanica
  • Afzelia peturei
  • Afzelia quanzensis
  • Afzelia rhomboidea
  • Afzelia xylocarpa
Synonyms
  • Afrafzelia Pierre
  • Pahudia Miq.

UsesEdit

Afzelia species are used primarily for wood, though some species also have medicinal uses. The timber is most commonly traded under the collective name "doussie", as well as under name "afzelia". One of the common names is also "pod mahogany", adding to the confusion surrounding the name mahogany.

The seeds are red and black and are used as beads.

The wood is often used as the surface material for outdoor velodromes.

The highly figured wood of the Asian species, Afzelia xylocarpa, is sold as Afzelia xylay. The seeds and bark of this species are used as medicine.

The dense and wavy wood of an Afzelia africana is used in ship-building.[1]

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article
 Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the 
Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
.