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Sausage Tree Kigelia Africana Pinnata Seeds
Packet of 10+ fresh seeds of the world famous African Sausage tree!
Originally from South and South-East Africa, it normally finds its home on forests, riverbanks and flood plains where it can get 15meters tall.
I got these locally from a regular customer, and after trying a whole heap of different ways I have finally worked out how to get the seeds out unharmed.
It is the only remaining member of the Kigelia family, and the name itself comes from the Swahili tribe. Unfortunately the exact meaning has been lost over time.
The beautiful big red flowers are pollinated by small bats, birds and several varieties of hawk moth. Then comes the main attraction, huge fruits which hang down on long ropes like giant sausages. Some of them can be a meter long and more than 10kilos! They are incredibly dense and trust me, the seeds are really hard to remove. I guess they had to be, as they are the food of elephants, parrots, antelope, deer, baboons, pigs, giraffes, hippopotamuses, monkeys, porcupines and even people!
The fruit is considered poisonous, but has lots of traditional uses after baking, drying or fermenting, and is even the main ingredient in a South African Beer.
Seeds are considered edible roasted, and are a common famine food. The whole plant is used in one form or another in traditional medicine, for the treatment and prevention of fungal infections, boils, psoriasis, eczema, leprosy, syphilis, skin cancer, dysentery, ringworm, tapeworm, malaria, diabetes, pneumonia, toothache, backache, as an aphrodisiac, and even for cosmetics, something that has caused a bit of interest from the mainstream cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry.
There are several natural steroidal chemicals in the sausage tree, that are the main ingredients of commercially available shampoos and facial creams.
The freshly harvested roots are used to make a yellow dye, and when boiled the fruit makes a deep vivid red.
The timber is very soft and buoyant making it ideal for its other main traditional use, dugout canoes.
That’s about it folks.
Grown by a friend of ours, no chems, no nasties, no problems!!!
