NAME: Daniellia thurifera
FAMILY NAME: Fabaceae
COMMON NAMES: Frankincense tree, Niger Copal Tree, Sierra Leone Frankincense
LOCAL NAMES: Iya
MORPHOLOGY: Daniellia thurifera is a large tree growing up to 45 metres tall. The straight, cylindrical bole can be around 40cm in diameter. The stem is long and column-like, hardly tapering; crown fairly small, deltoid, flattened, fairly open
USEFUL PART(S): Stem-wood dust
GENERAL USES: Medicinal, Wood
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION: Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo
WHY IS IT GREEN: Scabies, coughs, skin diseases and parasitic infections[
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT: The wood is used for plywood, joinery, general millwork, furniture components, boxes and crates, a decorative veneer can be produced from selected logs
FUN FACT: Gum exudates from cracks and wounds in the trunk are used to make a varnish called 'West African Gum Copal'. A frankincense, it is sold as a perfume.
The gum when burnt keep away evil spirits.
FURTHER READING:
Govaerts, R. (2000). World Checklist of Seed Plants Database in ACCESS D: 1-30141.
Lock, J.M. (1989). Legumes of Africa a check-list: 1-619. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Sita, P. & Moutsambote, J.-M. (2005). Catalogue des plantes vasculaires du Congo, ed. sept. 2005: 1-158. ORSTOM, Centre de Brazzaville.
The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families 2022. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/
https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Daniellia+thurifera
http://www.liberianfaunaflora.org/liberian-flora/leguminosae-caes/3493-daniellia-thurifera
CIRAD Forestry Department, 2009. Faro. [Internet] Tropix 6.0. http://tropix.cirad.fr/africa/faro.pdf. Accessed January 2012.