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Native West African Fruit Trees

Fruits contain nature’s essential nutrients, antioxidants, and health benefits. They are also ready for use by people. Below is a list of native West African fruit trees and other edible plants that have been used historically or are still being used today.

A major benefit of incorporating native edible plants is that they have adapted to suit local environmental conditions. They have adapted to soil type, temperature, and rainfall so they require less maintenance to keep them healthy.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that says, “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

Unlike the fruit trees of American and Asian origin, Africa’s fruit trees have not been recognized internationally in the commodity markets. Fruit production in Africa is predominately dominated by international fruit species introduced from tropical Americas and Asia. These introduced species, include Banana, Citrus, Mango, Papaya, Pineapple and others. The international fruit known and used by the local people continues to cause the downward spiral of knowledge and cultivation of local fruits. Thus, useful African wild plants have become threatened.

Growing a food forest” has many health benefits, as fruit can be picked and eaten fresh rather than waiting in storage and transportation for long periods, another benefit is that no plastic packaging is required. A multi-layered food forest or forest garden is low-maintenance, sustainable, and based on natural forest ecosystems. Planting a food forest will provide food, habitat, and even temperature control.

Consider this list of plants as a lesson in ethnobotany rather than a set menu of native plants. Some of the plants on this list may have only one edible portion while other parts of the plant may be toxic. Some could be toxic if prepared incorrectly.

Even if you prefer other fruit and vegetable options, consider growing one or two indigenous plants in your garden to help foster biodiversity and support native wildlife. You may just find they grow and produce far better than the imported fruit trees.

African boabab - Photo by boogan_boy iNatutalist

African boabab (Adansonia digitata)

Edible: Fruit, young leaves & seeds
Description: Succulent, deciduous tree 20m tall
Native to: Hot and dry tropical Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula (Yemen, Oman).
Use: The fruit pulp, seeds, leaves, and flowers of the baobab are all edible. The fruit pulp is high in vitamin C, calcium, phosphorus, carbohydrates, fibers, potassium, proteins, and lipids. Leaves are used in West Africa as a soup vegetable.
Growing: Sensitive to water clogging and frost. Pollinated by bats, bush babies, and hawkmoths.
Conservation: Considered threatened due to mining, development, desertification, and overuse of fruit.
Youtube link: Cooking baobab leaves.

Tamarind - Photo by davduf, iNaturalist

Tamarind (Tamarindus indica)

Edible: Fruit
Description: Evergreen tree 25m tall
Native to: Dry regions of tropical Africa
Use: The pod-like fruits contain an edible sweet, tangy pulp.
Growing: Drought and aerosol salt resistant
Youtube link: Best survival fruit in the world.

Shea butter tree - Photo by iles-ecologiques iNaturalist

Shea butter tree (Vitelleria paradoxa)

Edible: Fruit pulp and seed oil
Description: Deciduous tree 7–25m tall
Native to: Dry regions of tropical Africa
Use: The fruit pulp is removed for food, by fermentation or boiling. The pulp has a sweet taste. The kernel of the seed contains a vegetable fat known as shea butter which can be used as a cooking fat. Produces nuts for up to 200 years.
Youtube link: Shea butter is an African woman's gold.

Monkey cola (yellow)- Photo by Maxwell C. Obiakara, iNaturalist

Monkey cola - yellow (Cola lepidota)

Edible: Fruit
Description: Medium - large tropical tree that thrives in humid environments.
Native to: Western Africa.
Use: A rare Cola Nut. The large fruit is incredibly healthy and has a variety of food purposes. Fruit is crisp like a carrot. They have large, violet-colored seeds, orange-colored pulp, and a wealth of nutrients like fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Although the species is less well-known than C. acuminata, it has fruits that are just as beneficial.

Monkey cola - white by joeymo, iNaturalist

Monkey cola - white (Cola pachycarpa)

Edible: Fruit
Description: Small tree 10-15m tall
Native to: West and central tropical Africa.
Use: The fruits are large and contain very sweet white flesh. It is known as one of the tastiest species in the genus. It has pale red flowers with a white center.

Cocoplum by hankle, iNaturalist

Cocoplum (Chrysobalanus icaco)

Edible: Fruit & seed
Description: Evergreen shrub/tree 4-6m tall
Native to: West Africa, Central and south Florida, West Indies, Mexico, Central America and northern South America.
Use: Fruit can be eaten raw or cooked. A fairly sweet, white, spongy flesh. The seed can be eaten raw or roasted.
Toxicity: None known

Nigerian walnut - Photo by Sandrine Gallois, iNaturalist

Nigerian walnut (Plukenetia conophora)

Edible: Nut & leaves
Description: Stems 3-30m long
Native to: Native to tropical Africa
Use: The nuts can be roasted and eaten in the general diet, or the seed can be ground into a powder and used with flour in making cakes. The leaves are also edible and are often eaten with rice.

Madd - Photo by marcoschmidtffm, iNaturalist

Madd (Saba senegalensis)

Edible: Fruit & leaves
Description: Climber up to 40m long, can also be shrub-like with a trunk of up to 20 cm in diameter.
Native to: West and Central Africa (Particularly the Sahel region; Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Tanzania).
Use: The fruit has a hard yellow peel with a yellowish pulp. It tastes similar to that of the tamarind. The flavour has also been compared with that of a mango. In taste, they are acidic, almost like a strange form of citrus, which they nearly match in vitamin C content. The leaves are prepared in sauces and condiments as an appetizer with a salty tang. Useful for combating soil degradation
Toxicity: None known

Detar - Photo by salamikd iNaturalist

Detar (Detarium microcarpum)

Edible: Fruit & seeds
Description: Tree 15-25m tall
Native to: West and tropical northern Africa, dry savannah
Use: The edible fruit can be eaten raw, cooked, or made into flour with many uses. The fruit pulp is suitable for concentrated juice and jam adding more value than the fruit alone. Seeds can be roasted.

Desert date - Photo by marcoschmidtffm iNaturalist

Desert date (Balanites aegyptiaca)

Edible: Fruit, leaves & Flowers
Description: Tree 10m tall
Native to: Native to Africa & Middle East (Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sinai, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zaïre and Zimbabwe) and including the Sahel-Savannah region across Africa and the Arabian Peninsula (within the countries of Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Yemen).
Use: The yellow, fruit is edible but bitter. Leaves can be eaten raw or cooked, the oily seed is boiled to make it less bitter and eaten with sorghum. The flowers can also be eaten. The tree is valuable in arid regions because it produces fruit even in dry times. The seed cake remaining after the oil is extracted is can be used as animal fodder.
Growing: Tolerant of flooding and fires

African locust bean - Photo by krogulec iNaturalist

African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa)

Edible: Pod pulp & seeds
Description: Tree 7-30m tall
Native to: West Africa
Use: Grown for its pods that contain both a sweet pulp and valuable seeds. The yellow pulp is naturally sweet and high in carbohydrates. Seeds are high in lipids, protein, carbohydrates and are a good source of fat and calcium. The seed must be cooked to remove the seed coat and then fermented. Seeds can then be pounded into powder, then formed into cakes.
Growing: Fire resistant

Bush banana - Photo by careljongkind iNaturalist

Bush banana (Uvaria chamae)

Edible: Pod pulp
Description: A large climbing shrub or small tree
Native to: West and Central Africa
Use: The fully ripe fruit is sweet with an appealing acid taste.
Growing: Grown form seeds

Hanza - Photo by curcu34 iNaturalist

Hanza (Boscia senegalensis)

Edible: Fruit & processed seeds
Description: Evergreen shrub 2-4 m tall
Native to: West Africa
Use: Fruits are ripe at the beginning of the rainy season, when most crops are being planted. Fruits can be eaten raw and cooked. Raw fruits initially contain a sweet pulp that then dries out to a sugary solid. Juice can also be extracted and boiled down into a butter-like consistency that can be mixed with millet and milk to make cakes. In Sudan, the fruit is fermented into a beer.
Toxicity: Seeds can be sources of nutrition during the dry season. However, seed soaking also known as debittering, is essential to remove bitter and potentially toxic components.To gain access to the seeds, fruits need to be dried and pounded to remove the outer seed coat then soaked. Seeds are usually cooked prior to consumption. Cooked seeds are texturally similar to a chickpea and can be used in stews, soups and porridges. Seeds can also be re-dried and stored for later use or ground into a flour.

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Help plant fruit trees in Africa to improve food security.

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Fruit trees that are native to West Africa; Senegal, Niger, Guinea, Liberia, Togo, Nigeria and BurkinaFaso. Add some to your native food forest for crop diversity and biodiversity.

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