Saba comorensis

Saba comorensis is a species of flowering plant in the Apocynaceae family.[2] It is commonly called bungo fruit (pl. mabungo), mbungo, or rubber vine and is widespread across most of tropical Africa as well as in Madagascar and Comoros. It grows in Tanzania, for example on the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean. The species belongs to the genus Saba from the family Apocynaceae. The fruit looks similar to an orange with a hard orange peel but when opened it contains a dozen or so pips, which have the same texture as a mango seed with the fibres and juices all locked in these fibres.

Saba comorensis
Saba comorensis[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Gentianales
Family: Apocynaceae
Genus: Saba
Species:
S. comorensis
Binomial name
Saba comorensis
Synonyms

Landolphia comorensis (Bojer ex A. DC.) K. Schum.

The fruit also makes a delicious juice drink which has been described as tasting "somewhere between a mango, an orange and a pineapple" [3] The aromatic juice of the bungo fruit is also popular and highly appreciated on Pemba Island and other parts of coastal Tanzania.[4]

Not only in the Tanzanian Mahale Mountains National Park, S. comorensis is dispersed by chimpanzees.[5]

References
  1. 1885 illustration from Franz Eugen Köhler, in Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen
  2. "Saba comorensis (Bojer ex A.DC.) Pichon". Plants of the World Online. The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. n.d. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  3. The Times retrieved 30 July 2009 "The highlight is a juice from the bungo fruit, indigenous to Zanzibar, which has a taste somewhere between a mango, an orange and a pineapple."
  4. "Saba comorensis in Agroforestree Database" (PDF). web page. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  5. James V. Wakibara. Abundance and dispersion of some chimpanzee-dispersed fruiting plants at Mahale, Tanzania. African Journal of Ecology Vol. 43, Issue 2, pp. 107–113, May 2005. Article first published online: 27 MAY 2005. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2028.2005.00553.x


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.