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Parkia filicoidea
Fabaceae FAMILY

Parkia filicoidea

Parkia filicoidea

Edibility
3/5
Medicinal
2/5

Safety & Hazards

None known

Cultivation Details

HabitSemi-deciduous Tree
Growth—

Parkia filicoidea trees are leafless for a brief period, often during the flowering period in the dry season. It has been reported that flowering trees can be found throughout the year in Kenya and Tanzania. At night, the sterile flowers near the base of the inflorescence produce abundant nectar, which attracts bats. The flowers are probably most commonly pollinated by these bats, but squirrels have also been recorded as feeding on the nectar. Fruits develop in 2 - 3 months[1]. This species has a symbiotic relationship with certain soil bacteria; these bacteria form nodules on the roots and fix atmospheric nitrogen. Some of this nitrogen is utilized by the growing plant but some can also be used by other plants growing nearby[2].

Propagation

Parkia filicoidea can be propagated by seed. The seeds have no period of dormancy and deteriorate rapidly, so they should be sown quickly. Removal of the seedcoat, boiling for a short time or soaking in water overnight improve germination. Fresh seeds extracted from the fruit already started to germinate without any contact with external water. In Kenya seeds found in fresh elephant and baboon faeces germinated soon after collection. In tests in Malawi, however, seeds failed to germinate regardless of the pre-treatment[1] Cite as: Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. 2026-02-20. <tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Parkia+filicoidea>

Pollinators

Bats

References

  1. [1]Protabase - Plant Resources of Tropical Africa. — http://www.prota.org ↩︎An excellent on-line database with detailed information on over 3,200 species of useful plants of Africa.
  2. [2]Nodulation Plants in GRIN Taxonomy — United States Department of Agriculture · http://www.ars-grin.gov/~sbmljw/cgi-bin/taxnodul.pl?language=en ↩︎An online database listing plants that have either positive or negative reports on root and stem nodulation with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
  3. [3]Edible Wild Plants of Tanzania — Ruffo, C.K.: Birnie, A. & Tengnas, B. · Regional Land Management Unit; Nairobi. · 2002 · ISBN 9966-896-60-0 ↩︎A very well presented, simple guide to growing and utilizing wild food plants in Tanzania, with line drawings of each plant, a description, habitat and range, non-food as well as food uses, plus basic information on growing the plants.
  4. [4]Mansfeld's Database of Agricultural and Horticultural Plants — http://mansfeld.ipk-gatersleben.de/pls/htmldb_pgrc/f?p=185:3:4292127278597336 ↩︎Terse details of a huge range of useful plants.
  5. [5]Flora Zambesiaca — http://apps.kew.org/efloras/fz/intro.html ↩︎An excellent online flora of plants from the Zambezi River basin. It lists a number of the plant uses as well as the habitats and botanical descriptions of the plants.
  6. [6]Cornucopia II — Facciola. S. · Kampong Publications, California. · 1998 · ISBN 0-9628087-2-5 ↩︎The second edition of an excellent guide to the edible uses of plants, though it does not give any details of cultivation etc.
  7. [7]Dictionary of Economic Plants. — Uphof. J. C. Th. · Weinheim · 1959 · ISBN - ↩︎An excellent and very comprehensive guide but it only gives very short descriptions of the uses without any details of how to utilize the plants. Not for the casual reader.
  8. [8]The Leguminosae; A Source Book of Characteristics, Uses and Nodulation — Allen O.N.; Allen E.K. · University of Wisconsin · 1981 · ISBN 0-333-32221-5 ↩︎An amazing and comprehensive work, giving a brief guide to the many genera of the family Fabaceae and also the principle uses of the genus.