THE NDEA FROM ZAIRE

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Sarcocephalus xanthoxylon
FAMILY: Rubiaceae

The Ndea (pronounced nday ah) is a fruit from Northwest Zaire and the gallery of forests of the southern half of the Central African Republic. It may have a larger range than that but we do not have that information. It is a very good fruit that we have written about before from a Zairian perspective. We would now like to update people about the Ndea with recent observations about its growth habits as observed both here in the States and in Zaire.

The natural habitat of the Ndea tree is swamp forest that is permanently wet. The Ndea often grows in water that is flowing or stagnant, but it is also found in places where there is no surface water but where constantly damp soil is available. The tree can become quite large or tall, but usually is not both at the same time. In other words, in close forest conditions, the Ndea becomes a tree of 100 ft. high with small branch spread. In the grassland areas where it is sometimes one of the dominant trees along small watercourses, it grows to perhaps 50 ft. with a wide-spreading crown exceeding 50 ft in diameter. These trees are of a lighter green foliage than most other forest species, so they are easy to distinguish as individuals in a forest setting. When looking at wandering water courses from the tops of savannah-covered hills, it is easy to pick out the Ndea trees in the gallery forests that follow the water. If Ndea trees are spotted on the side of a hill, this indicates a spring or at least water very near to the surface at that spot.

In the wild, we find the Ndea to be a regular and abundant bearer. The fruit are usually gathered from the ground under the trees because that is when they are the most ready to eat, at least from the local viewpoint. I have picked Ndea fruit on several occasions in order to get fruit that weren't as ripe as those on the ground, because this gives fruit with a little more flavour and firmer flesh. The ripened fruit is very similar in appearance to the pincushion fruit, varying in size from slightly larger than a golf ball to that of a softball. They are fully ripe when they are yellow and have a taste similar to an apple with texture like a pear.

The Ndea is a sort of multiple fruit that flowers from bright green balls that contain hundreds of individual flowers grouped together. When the flowers are all blooming, the fragrance given off is wonderful. The blooms are white and are visited by several types of insect pollinator, including bees.

Until recently, all the trees we've seen were wild, so we didn't know what kind of growth rates these trees would have. In 1989, we planted a few trees in good places and found out that the Ndea is a very fast-growing tree. At the same time, we sent some seed to the States, to Bill Whitman, who almost didn't even try the seeds because they were so tiny and unpromising-looking. He did plant them, however, and was astounded to see how they came up as thick as moss.

Well, the sprouts never let up and Bill had to thin out many of the plants. He then selected out an exceptional plant and watched it grow like crazy. Then the freeze of 1989 came and Bill had two nights of 32 degrees at his place. To his and our surprise, his Ndea was not damaged at all, even though it was still less than a year old. At three years of age, the tree had its first flowers, but apparently no fruit set. A year later, Bill's Ndea tree was about 14 ft tall and about that wide or wider in branch spread.

When I visited Bill, it had over a hundred flowering structures that were in various stages of blooming. There was one immature fruit on the ground that was in a state of ripeness which allowed us to taste the typical Ndea flavour, though the fruit was too young to have any real flesh. Bill was highly impressed with the little immature fruit as he described it as "bursting with flavour".

This year, in 1994, Bill further updates his Ndea tree as having "hundreds and hundreds of immature fruit that have fallen on the ground". He does not understand why the fruit does not set properly, since the flowers appear to be complete, but he does confirm the fact that it is well-adapted to South Florida.

Though there are still a number of things we still do not know about the Ndea, such as whether or not it is self-incompatible (needing more than one tree to ensure fruit set), it is one of the best of Zaire's native fruits.

Paul Noren

DATE: July 1994

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