Sausage tree

Products:

• Food: Ripe fruits are inedible, although slices of baked fruit are added to beer to aid in fermentation of local honey beer, for example throughout East Africa. In times of food shortage, the seeds are roasted in hot ashes and eaten.
• Fodder: When the flowers and leaves fall to the ground they are eaten by game and livestock.
• Apiculture: The large, maroon flowers attract bees and are a source of bee forage.
• Timber: The wood is easy to work and produces a good-quality timber for general use.
• Tannin or dyestuff: A black dye can be produced from the fruit. Tannin can be extracted from the roots and stem bark.
• Poison: extracts from the fruit have molluscicidal properties and raw fruits are poisonous to humans.
• Medicine: all parts of this tree are said to have medicinal value.

Services:

• Erosion control: The sausage tree is suitable for riverbank stabilization.
• Shade or shelter: it provides a good shade but should be avoided during fruition as its fruit which weigh about 12 kg are deadly if they fall on you.
• Ornamental: the tree is fast growing; its spreading canopy and interesting flowers and fruits, it makes a good ornamental tree.
• Other services: In Nigeria pieces of fruit soaked in water, together with small pieces of metal are sprinkled with young palm fronds to stimulate germination of yam tubers as well as promote a good harvest.