Common Name:

General Information

Adenia volkensii is a perennial plant producing more or less woody, annual stems up to 50cm long from a succulent, woody stem that can be 1 metre tall[].
The plant is harvested from the wild for local use as a medicine. It is sold in local markets for medicinal use and also harvested commercially from the wild as a source of materials for the pharmaceutical industry. It is also collected, grown and traded as an ornamental by enthusiasts[].

Known Hazards

The sap is very poisonous[].
The fruit and roots are used to poison hyenas[].

Botanical References

Range

East tropical Africa - Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi.

Habitat

Scrubby vegetation in rocky localities on red soil or lava-dust at elevations from 1,000 - 2,000 metres[].

Properties

Medicinal Rating
Habit	Deciduous Shrub
Height	1.50 m
Cultivation Status	Ornamental, Wild

Cultivation Details

Prefers a position in full sun[]. Requires a well-drained soil[, ]. The plant stores water in its swollen stem and rootstock and is therefore drought tolerant[].
The plant regenerates quickly after damage by cutting and from bush fires that are not too fierce[].

Edible Uses

None known

Medicinal

A leaf decoction is taken orally to treat bronchitis, coughs and fever, or is used as a purgative enema[].

The pounded seeds are given in enema form as a diuretic[].

A few drops of sap are sucked from a piece of twig or stem to treat gonorrhoea. This should be done with extreme care; larger amounts are very poisonous[].

Powder of the roasted rootstock is taken to treat coughs, colds and pneumonia, and is combined with milk to treat stomach-ache and internal swellings[].

The most important active ingredient is volkensin - this is a potent inhibitor of eukaryotic protein synthesis in whole cells as well as in cell-free systems. The inhibitory activity is a function of the A subunit; the B subunit has a lectin function and allows the protein to pass the intact cell membrane. Volkensin is one of the most lethal double-chain ribosome-inactivating and ricin-like toxins. Chemically, it resembles most closely modeccin, the toxin of Adenia digitata. It causes neuron death not only at the injection site, but it is also transported between neurons. Possibilities have also been studied of selectively killing mononuclear macrophages, the cells in which the HIV virus survives and which transfer it to T-cells in which the virus is rapidly multiplied resulting in the development of Aids[].
All parts of the plant, even the flowers, contain cyanogenic glycosides, with the rootstock accounting for about 90% of the amount of these compounds. The cyanogenic glycosides isolated are tetraphyllin B (barterin) and its epimer epi-tetraphyllin B (volkenin)[].

Other Uses

None known

Propagation

Seed -
Cuttings. Fairly easy, but the resultant plants do not always form the swollen stems found in seed-grown material[].

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