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Menispermaceae FAMILY

Penianthus zenkeri

Penianthus zenkeri

Edibility
0/5
Medicinal
3/5

Safety & Hazards

None known

Cultivation Details

HabitEvergreen Tree
Growth—

A dioecious species, both male and female forms need to be grown if fruit and seed are required[1].

Propagation

Seed - it has a hard seedcoat and may benefit from scarification before sowing in order to speed up and improve germination. This can usually be done by pouring a small amount of nearly boiling water on the seeds (being careful not to cook them!) and then soaking them for 12 - 24 hours in warm water. By this time they should have imbibed moisture and swollen - if they have not, then carefully make a nick in the seedcoat (being careful not to damage the embryo) and soak for a further 12 hours before sowing[1, PFAF]. Cite as: Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. 2026-02-20. <tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Penianthus+zenkeri>

Pollinators

Data unavailable

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]African Flowering Plants Database — Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques. · http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/africa/recherche.php ↩︎Contains information on over 150,000 plant names (including synonyms) giving a description and habitat, plus a distribution map.
  3. [3]Manual for the Propagation and Cultivation of Medicinal Plants of Ghana. — Amponsah K., Crensil O’R., Odamtten G.T., Ofusohene-Djan W. · Aburi Botanic Garden; Ghana. · 2002 ↩︎A nice, concise guide, it details some of the medicinal uses of plants from Ghana. Available as a PDF file on the Internet.
  4. [4]The Useful Plants of West Tropical Africa. — Burkil. H. M. · Royal Botanic Gardens; Kew. · 1985 - 2004 ↩︎Brief descriptions and details of the uses of over 4,000 plants. A superb, if terse, resource, it is also available electronically on the Web - see http://www.aluka.org/
  5. [PFAF]Plants for a Future — pfaf.org ↩︎