272 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 
The timber was reported as satinwood and worth 3d. to 
Is. per superficial foot in the Liverpool market in 1906, and 
that moderate quantities (of fair length and squares) would be 
taken. 
Pterocarpus esculentus (Schum. and Thon.). Edible-fruited Padouk. 
Gbingbindo (Yoruba) ; Akpanagya, Uruhe (Benin) ; Nja (Efik). 
It is one of the most common waterside trees of all the 
Southern Provinces of Nigeria; some of the rivers on the 
banks of which it is found are the Ovia, Ogun and Cross River. 
Belonging to the mixed deciduous forest zone, it is in the middle 
reaches of these rivers where it is most prevalent. : 
A typical feature of this small tree is the bright, yellow- 
coloured flower, which quite brightens up the banks of the 
rivers at the end of February or March. Another most peculiar 
feature is the odd, somewhat kidney-shaped fruit with its 
rough surface corrugations, containing inside a hardish nut 
about 1 inch in diameter. Either the nuts or the fruit are 
often seen floating down the rivers, especially where they are 
tidal. The leaves are more typical of the Pterocarps, other- 
wise the fruit is most unlike either those of the genus or even 
of the family. The bole of the tree is short, smooth and almost 
silver-grey in colour, though it is often discoloured with the 
mud from the perennial floods of the river. It is usually seen 
with more than one stem. 
The timber is white and not over-hard. It is not very 
durable. 
The tree is not very fast-growing, but is an evergreen, with 
a short period in which nearly all the leaves fall. It serves 
a most useful purpose in holding the banks of the streams 
wherever it is found, and it is noticeable that its roots appear 
to extend a long way back and that it is one of the last trees to 
be washed out by floods. It sprouts fairly well from the stump 
when cut, unless it is almost at once submerged by the floods, 
which points to the fact that it should be cut only at the begin- 
ning or towards the end of the dry season. Natural regenera- 
‘tion appears to be fair, but no plantations have been tried 
with this tree. 
The nuts have not been examined to see what they contain, 
though they are of nutritive value. 
For export it does not yield large timber, and for local use 
it is rather small, but for local huts it might occasionally be 
used where other timber is scarce, as in the dry zone. It makes 
a fair firewood in those places. Although the fruit is supposed 
to be edible, very few natives have tried it, and apparently 
it is only used in times of great scarcity. 
