Ivory Coast Almond

Terminalia ivorensis A. Chevalier

Standard trade name: Idigbo

Local names: Amire (sometimes wrongly written “emeri”) (Ghana), Framire (Ivory Coast)

A closed-forest tree growing up to 150 ft high and 15 ft in girth. Buttresses blunt and extending up the bole, which is frequently narrowly fluted. Leaves are obovate, acuminate and fairly puberulous. Flowers are in slender racemes 4–5 in long. They are white and fragrant.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.—The light-weight timber has pale yellow to light brown sapwood with the heartwood slightly darker. The sapwood is usually 1–2 in thick. The grain of the timber is fairly straight but sometimes slightly interlocked. The texture is medium to coarse and the growth rings unusually distinct for a tropical timber. The weight varies between 30 and 39 lb/ft3 and the average is about 34 lb/ft 3 seasoned. The green weight may be about 50 lb/ft3.

SEASONING.—The timber is known to season rapidly and well with little or no checking. British Forest Products Laboratory kiln schedule J gives good results (FPRL, 1956).

DURABILITY.—Idigbo is durable. The sapwood is susceptible to attack by powder-post beetles. Data on its resistance to termite attack in West Africa are conflicting.

WORKING QUALITIES.—The timber works fairly easily with all hand and machine tools, having only a small blunting effect on their cutting edges. It finishes cleanly in other operations and stains and polishes well if the grain is suitably filled. It takes nails and screws well. It also glues satisfactorily.

USES.—The timber, which is weather resistant, is used for house building, shingles, greenhouses, furniture, paneling, cabinet and interior work. It may also be used for plywood manufacture.

XYLEM ANATOMY.—Growth rings present. Wood ring-porous. Vessels: solitary or in pairs, rarely in threes; circular in outline, rarely angular; average pore diameter 119μm, range 40μm–160μm; average vessel element length 444μm, range 300μm–575μm; vessel wall thickness 3μm–4μm; perforation plates simple; vessel element end wall inclination slightly oblique to transverse; intervascular pitting alternate, rather small. Imperforate tracheary elements: nonseptate fiber tracheids, average length 1185μm, range 1000μm–1375μm; fibers with very few simple pits on tangential walls. Vascular rays: homogeneous, primarily multiseriate, 3 cells wide, 3 to 27 cells high, biseriate and uniseriate cells also present. Axial parenchyma: paratracheal, cells containing dark, amorphous deposits.

Terminalia ivorensis is a species of tree in the family Combretaceae, and is known by the common names of Ivory Coast almond, idigbo, black afara, framire and emeri.