African teak

It is a deciduous tree usually growing to 16 m tall, with dark brown bark and a high, wide-crowned canopy. of shiny compound leaves. In favoured wetter locations the trees are typically about 18-19 m tall. The leaves appear at the time of the flowers or shortly afterwards. They are alternate, deep green, imparipinnate, with 11-19 subopposite to alternate leaflets, the leaflets 2.5–7 cm long and 2–4.5 cm broad. It produces an abundance of scented, orange-yellow flowers in panicles 10–20 cm long; flowering is in the spring. In southern Africa, this is usually just at the end of the dry season, often about mid-October. The pod is 2–3 cm diameter, surrounded by a circular wing 8–12 cm diameter, reminiscent of a brown fried egg, and containing a single seed. This brown papery and spiky seed pod stays on long after the leaves have fallen. In poorly-drained locations, the tree can still grow but it becomes more open in shape with leaves on the end of long branches - a 'stag-headed' appearance.

* The trunk of the African teak is clear of foliage for the first 25-30 m African Teak = How you can help Unsustainable illegal logging threatens this towering giant of western and central Africa. More