Sarcocephalus latifolius

Other Names : Sierra Leone peach, pin cushion tree, Guinea peach, African peach, liane à fraises, ubuluinu, Opepe
Sarcocephalus latifolius is a multi-stemmed hermaphroditic tree or shrub up to 12 m. It is a savanna shrub sometimes found in undisturbed fringing forest and closed savanna woodland It has an open canopy. Flowers with terminal spherical head-like cymes of small whitish flowers, flowering from April-June. In Nauclea, the flowers are joined by their calyces. Fruits ripen from July-September. The fruit is a syncarp.

Health benefits and uses of Sarcocephalus latifolius

• Food: The fleshy fruits of S. latifolius are edible.
• Fodder: Livestock eat shoot and leaves of the African peach.
• Apiculture: The flowers provide nectar and pollen to bees.
• Fuel: Opepe wood is a source of firewood.
• Timber: Opepe wood is termite resistant.
• Tannin or dyestuff: Opepe bark yields tannins used in dyeing.
• Medicine:
  • The fruit is eaten as a cough remedy.
  • In Kinshasa, S. latifolius is used by traditional healers to treat diabetes.
  • In Nigeria N. latifolia, is used as a cure for malaria fevers.
  • The aqueous extracts of N. latifolia leaves (0.25-2.0 mg/ml) paralysed T. columbriformis larvae in a concentration-dependent manner (ED50 value of 0.52 mg/ml at 24 h). The paralysing effects of the extracts increased with period of exposure.
  • Extracts of the plant exhibited activity against Escherichia coli, Shigella flexneri, Salmonella typhi and Staphylococcus aureus (responsible for gastroenteritis in children).
  • Ethanolic extracts of N. latifolia decreased the level of parasitaemia in a dose-dependent manner in mice experimentally infected with Trypanosoma brucei brucei.
  • The alkaloid strictosamine is obtained from the roots, leaves and stem bark.
  • Alzheimer's Disease : A study published in the journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine suggests that Sarcocephalus latifolius bark, with its potent antioxidant properties, could be a viable candidate as a treatment for AD and a variety of other diseases. They found that S. latifolius could be used as a potent source of antioxidants, such as vitamin E and caffeic acid, which could make it a viable approach to treating AD and other diseases caused by oxidative stress. Their cytotoxicity tests also indicated that the plant’s extracts are safe for use in the food industry.

References

• Agroforestry Database 4.0 (Orwa et al.2009)
• https://bmccomplementalternmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12906-017-1772-6