Parkia biglobosa (Jacq.) R.Br. [MIMOSACEAE]

Parkia biglobosa is a tree being up to 20 m high, bole stout, not buttressed, low-branching, bearing a large wide-spreading crown, deciduous, flowering while leafless; flowers in pendulous capitula bearing also pendulous, large fruit pods; of the Soudanian/Guinean savannah and transition woodland, from Senegal and on into southern Sudan.The bark-infusion is taken in Kordofanan in Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and South-East Nigeria as a tonic and anti-diarrhoetic. The bark is commonly sold in herbalist shops in the western part of the Region for the analgesic action it confers in mouthwashes and steam-inhalations for toothache. A red colour is imparted to the mouth while the saponins in the bark contribute asepsis. In Casmance, Senegal, the bark has wide usage: alone for female sterility, baths and by draughts, and similarly administrated in prescription with other drug-plants for skin-infections and leprosy, and for blennorrhoea. Fula and Tukulor people of Senegal drink a decoction against Schistosoma infection. In Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso the pounded bark with lemon juice added is applied to sores and ulcers; a decoction is considered anti-rachitic, tonic and febrifugal; and it is one of 32 other plants in a complex prescription used in the Kaya region for leprosy. Our work on this plant will start in 2009.