Common Name: Adam's Apple Flower

General Information

Adam's apple flower is an ornamental shrub or small tree with sweetly scented showy flowers that grows up to 15 metres tall[].
The plant is often used medicinally, being harvested from wild plants[]. The powdered bark is traded internationally in herbal medicine shops[].

Known Hazards

The plant is very toxic[].
The latex is extremely caustic: one drop in the eye may cause blindness[].

Botanical References

Range

Western Tropical Africa - Sierra Leone to Central African Republic and DR Congo, south to Angola.

Habitat

Occurs widely in the understorey of open forest, forest clearings or bush, also along the coast, less often in gallery forest, from sea-level up to elevations of 2,000 metres[].

Properties

Medicinal Rating
Other Uses Rating
Habit	Tree
Height	15.00 m
Cultivation Status	Wild

Cultivation Details

A plant of the humid tropics[].

Plants can be found flowering and fruiting throughout the year[]. The fruits are mature after 1 year[].

Edible Uses

None known

Medicinal

Adam's apple flower is a very toxic plant, but it is still often used in African traditional medicine. Research has shown the presence of a wide range of alkaloids in all parts of the plant and these are primarily responsible for the medicinal actions[].
Coronaridine and conopharyngine exhibit central nervous system stimulant effects. In regular doses, conopharyngine has hypotensive properties, causes bradycardia and decreases body temperature. High doses of ibogaine, ibogamine and voacangine produce convulsions and asphyxia. Coronaridine showed diuresis and significant hypoglycaemic activity. It is an effective antifertility agent because of its oestrogenic activity. It also has leishmanicidal activity. Furthermore, apparicine, conopharyngine, coronaridine and perivine have local analgesic activity. The monomers apparacine, coronaridine and the dimers conodurine and gabunine showed significant cytotoxicity against P-388 lymphocytic leukaemia cell cultures. Conoduramine, conodurine and apparicine also showed moderate to strong antibacterial activity against several human pathogens, while apparicine also showed strong activity against type III poliovirus (HPV-3)[].
Several laboratory tests have shown that a hot water extract of the aerial parts had stronger local anaesthetic activity than procaine, which was primarily used in dentistry before more effective alternatives were developed[].
The ethanolic stem bark extract showed significant activity against gram-positive bacteria, while leaf extract showed significant activity against amoeba[].

The pulped leaves and latex from the stem and bark have several uses, the main ones being as a local anaesthetic, e.g. to treat dislocated bones or headache, for the treatment of wounds, sores, abscesses and furuncles, and to treat dermal infections such as filaria, ringworm and fungal infections[].

The latex is used as a haemostatic because it forms a film over the wound[]. It is taken internally as an anthelmintic[]. One to two drops are instilled in the nose to soothe headache, acting as a counter-irritant on the nasal mucosae. The latex is also used as a sedative to calm fits of insanity[]. A drop of latex of the twigs or roots is put in the eye to treat conjunctivitis or ophthalmia, in spite of its strongly caustic properties[]. Like many lactiferous plants, the latex is considered to be galactagogue[].

A decoction of the leaves is taken as a tonic, appetizer, febrifuge and aphrodisiac[].
Externally, it is used as a massage against rickets in children and to combat fatigue in adults[].

A bark decoction is given as enema to treat kidney troubles, rheumatism and persistent constipation[]. A root or stem bark decoction is used as nose drops to treat colds or sinusitis. A decoction of the stem bark is taken to treat diarrhoea[].

A decoction or maceration of the fruit is used as an enema to treat testicular swellings[].

Other Uses

Large leaves are woven into thatched roofs of houses in Gabon in the belief that their bitter taste keeps away cockroaches[].

The bark latex produces an inferior rubber that remains sticky and which has been used occasionally[].

The wood is yellowish white, moderately hard and easy to work, and it finishes smoothly. It is not resistant to fungal decay. It is suitable for general carpentry, plywood and boxboards. It is occasionally used in Liberia to make rice mortars[].

Propagation

Seed.
Semi-ripe cuttings.

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