Kampala Tree and Palm Directory

Tree Species
Common Name
Tree Description
Tree Uses

English: Breadfruit, Breadnut

+ Tree Species

Artocarpus altilis

+ Tree Family

Moraceae

+ Ecology

Breadfruit is native to Native of tropical Asia. It is a tree for the hot, humid, tropical lowlands and grows best in equatorial lowlands; it is occasionally found in the highlands, but yield and fruit quality suffer in cooler conditions. It prefers rainfall of fairly equal distribution but is quite tolerant of short dry periods. The tree may shed its fruit when the soil is excessively wet. Can be grown on a variety of soils and thrives on alluvial and coastal soils. They do best in deep, fertile, well drained sandy loam or clay loam soils. In Kampala, this tree can be found within Uganda Golf course club, Makerere university, along Windsor Close among other places.

+ Description

Breadfruit is an evergreen tree with a wide crown. It can grow up to 30 meters tall, though is usually smaller. The straight, cylindrical bole, which is often buttressed, can be 1.8 meters in diameter and may reach a height of 4 m before branching. The tree does yellowing and falling when leaves fold or inflorescence emerges.

BARK: smooth, light colored.

LEAVES: thick, leathery, top dark green, often glossy, underside dull with an elevated midrib and main veins, striking variation in leaf outline and dissection, broadly obovate to broadly ovate, varying in size and shape, juvenile leaves on young trees and new shoots of mature trees usually larger, more dissected and more hirsute, leaves sometimes smooth but often with few to many pale to reddish hairs, especially on the midrib and veins.

FLOWERS: tiny male flowers emerge first and are on spongy, erect, cylindrical to club-shaped, up to 18 inch (45 cm) long, yellow-green inflorescences. The tiny female flowers are on prickly, ball-shaped, lime green inflorescences. The female flowers are followed by large, rounded, smooth to spiny, typically seedless, green to yellowish multiple fruits with white to pale yellow flesh.

FRUIT: globose to oblong, rind light green, yellowish-green or yellow when mature, flesh creamy white or pale yellow, surface varies from smooth to slightly bumpy or spiny, with individual disks ranging from areolate to slightly raised and flattened, to widely conical, up to 3 mm high and 5 mm across at the base, to narrowly conical up to 5 mm long. Sometimes the fruit is seedless or some seeds form.

+ Uses

Edible: unripe fruit is eaten as a starchy vegetable with a flavour similar to that of artichoke hearts, ripe fruits can be eaten raw or cooked as a starchy vegetable or fermented into a cheese-like food, mature fruit can be dried and ground into a flour, seeds can be cooked with the raw breadfruit or removed and boiled or roasted, male inflorescence can be cooked and used as a vegetable or used in the preparation of a sweet meal. http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php id=Artocarpus+altilis

Medicine: flowers, latex, leaves, roots, bark, and fruit. http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php id=Artocarpus+altilis

Agroforestry: can be integrated into mixed cropping systems with yams and other root crops, Piper methysticum, bananas and some cash crops, especially black pepper and coffee, used as a wind-break or shade tree for coffee plantations, improves the soil improver.

The male flower spikes are blended with fiber of paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) to make elegant loincloths.

The inner layer of bark can be used to make bark cloth (tapa).

The sticky, milky sap is a gum that is used to caulk canoes to make them watertight and can be used as an adhesive to seal and prepare wooden surfaces for painting.

A sticky latex can be used as a chewing gum.

A sticky latex can be used as an adhesive for bark cloth and for caulking canoes.

The latex can be mixed with coconut oil for trapping houseflies.

The inflorescence has been used to make a yellow tan to brown dye.

The dried, hard flowers can be burned as a mosquito repellent.

The leaves are widely used as plates and also to wrap food for cooking and serving.

The dried stipules or senescent leaves can be used to polish and smooth bowls and nuts strung for decorative purposes.

The wood can be used for the construction of houses and canoes. It is also used to make bowls, carvings, furniture and even surfboards.

The wood is suitable for plywood production.

The tree is a source of firewood.

An ornamental tree .

+ Propagation

Seed, root cuttings and air layering.

+ Management

Pruning to remove only dead branches, and to trim them to a height convenient for cultivation.

+ Remarks

A multipurpose tree with a wide range of traditional uses as a food, medicine and source of materials.



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