PlantPeers
Back to Catalog
Thonningia sanguinea
Balanophoraceae FAMILY

Thonningia sanguinea

Thonningia sanguinea

Edibility
2/5
Medicinal
3/5

Safety & Hazards

The flowers are incorporated into arrow poisons[1]. This report does not make it clear if the flowers are believed to be poisonous, or whether they are used to enhance the action of the toxin[PFAF].

Cultivation Details

HabitPerennial
Growth—

The plant can parasitize plantation crops such as Hevea, oil-palm and cacao. Infestation is not normally fatal, but it must cause some loss of vigour in the host. Heavy infestation, however, has been recorded on Hevea trees in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, where trees have been killed[1].

Propagation

Seed - Cite as: Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. 2026-02-20. <tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Thonningia+sanguinea>

Pollinators

Data unavailable

References

  1. [1]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/
  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]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.
  4. [PFAF]Plants for a Future — pfaf.org ↩︎