Name: Azobé; Ekki.
English: Red ironwood tree
Region: Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Uganda.
Habitat:subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests; needs full sunlight; seedlings can persist in the shady undergrowth.
Culture: threatened by habitat loss.
Content: biflavonoids, lophirone L (1) and lophirone M (2); luteolin, lithospermoside; lophirachalcone, alatachalcone; teleocidin.
Use: wood, known as azobe, for railroad ties, groynes, bridge planking, constructions outdoors, poles for electric fences without separate isolators.
BotanyTree, deciduous, monoecious; clear of branches up to about 30 metres
Stem: straight, without buttress, sometimes with a swollen base; bark red-brown, 2 centimetres thick, bright yellow layer underneath; bark greenish-grey, which becomes pink or light brown as the tree matures; heartwood dark red-brown to chocolate brown, with conspicuous white deposits of silica; wood is extremely hard.
Leaves: 25 centimetres long, tough, fairly narrow, elongated, with a rounded or slightly indented tip, clustering at the ends of the twigs.
Inflorescencs: loose, branched, terminal.
Flowers: white, fairly large, strong-smelling; flowering occurs in adult trees with trunks over 50 centimetres in diameter, and takes place from the time the new leaves appear.
Pollination: by insects.
Fruits: contain a single, oil-rich seed in a conical capsule; brown when mature; surrounded by two unequally-sized membranous ‘wings’, one up to six centimetres long and the other twice that size.
Dispersion: by wind.