Kampala Tree and Palm Directory

Tree Species
Common Name
Tree Description
Tree Uses

English: Ceara rubber tree

+ Tree Species

Manihot carthaginensis

+ Tree Family

Euphorbiaceae

+ Ecology

Ceara rubber tree is native to eastern Brazil. It is often left behind as a relict of cultivation and therefore found in scrubs, secondary forest and waste places along roads and rivers, near paddies, old cultivated fields. Also found occasionally in dense, primary forests. In Kampala, Ceara rubber tree can be found Makerere University, along Muwafu road,Lumumba avenue among other places.

+ Description

Ceara rubber tree is a deciduous, glabrous shrub or tree with a sparse crown; usually growing up to 6 meters tall but with occasional specimens up to 10 - 20 meters. The cylindrical bole can be 20 - 30cm in diameter. The tree often produces several weak branches from near the base.

BARK: strongly peeling glossy brown, latex abundant; branches herbaceous, glabrous.

LEAVES: leaf blade palmately 3-7-lobed, 10-30 × 15-25 cm, papery or membranous, lobes obovate, elliptic, rhomboid, or spatulate, 7-10 × 3.5-7 cm, margins entire, apex acute to shortly acuminate, stipules lanceolate, 4-6 mm, gray-green, laciniate; petiole 4-25 cm, with many longitudinal grooves, peltate, inserted at least 5 mm from margin.

FLOWERS: panicles 7-9 cm; bracts lanceolate, ca. 2.5 mm. Male flowers: calyx 9-11 mm, 5-lobed, lobes oblong, ca. 5 × 2-3 mm, apex obtuse, glabrous inside; disk shallowly cupular, 10-lobed, glabrous; anthers oblong, ca. 2.5 mm. Female flowers: calyx 10-11 mm, 5-lobed; ovary ellipsoidal, glabrous.

FRUIT: Capsules subglobose or globose, ca. 2 cm in diam., warty, wingless, rugose. Seeds depressed-ovoid, ca. 1.5 cm, with shallow brown spot-stripes.

 

+ Uses

An ornamental tree.

Edible: Leaves are cooked and then eaten as a vegetable, root can be cooked and then eaten in times of food scarcity. http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php id=Manihot+carthaginensis+glaziovii

Medicine: stem and roots. http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php id=Manihot+carthaginensis+glaziovii

Agroforestry: used to provide temporary shade for cocoa plants, leaves are applied as green leaf manure, the species is used as a hedge.

The tree is a source of latex that can be used to make rubber. It can also be used to make rubber.

The plant is used in breeding programs for cassava (Manihot esculenta), being used to improve disease resistance.

The seeds contain 90 % unsaturated oil that can be used as a fuel for pre-combustion diesel engines.

The wood s used to make items such use boxes.

+ Propagation

Seeds, cuttings.

+ Management

+ Remarks

The source of a latex that can be used to make rubber, there was tremendous interest in growing this plant, especially at the beginning of the 20th century. It is not currently cultivated as a rubber crop, but is often grown in gardens as an ornamental.



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