Irvingia gabonensis (Aubry-Lecomte ex O'Rorke) Bai

Tree 10-40 m tall; buttresses to 3 m high; bole straight and unbranched (in wild trees); crown approximately spherical or taller than wide; foliage dense and dark green. Leavese lliptic; apex tapering or occasionally with a barely discernable acute acumen; base acute to cuneate; length 4.5-8 cm, width 2-4 cm (canopy leaves from mature wild trees); secondary, tertiary and quaternary vena-tion obvious, areolaeg reater than 1 mm diam. Inflorescenceax illary, laxly branched panicle to 9 cm long. Flowers in fascicles; pedicels to 5 mm long; sepals 1-1.5 mm; petals yellowish white, 3-4 mm long; filaments 4-5 mm long. Fruit ellipsoid to cylindrical, occasionally almost spherical, only slightly laterally compressed; length 4-6.5 cm, width 4.2-6.4, thickness 3.4-6 cm; smooth; green when ripe; mesocarp bright orange, soft and juicy when ripe with a few weak fibres, fibres appressed and curly, or absent on old pyrenes; taste of mesocarp from sweet to slightly bitter with a turpentine flavour but always edible; pyrene single, woody but usually disintegrating after one season on the ground. Seeds 2.5-3.8 cm long, 1.7-2.7 cm wide, 0.8-1.2 cm thick; endosperm visible on fresh material as a white dot 2-3 mm diam. on the inside of the testa opposite the point of attachment of the two cotyledons, this sometimes extends to form a white streak 1-2 mm broad, running parallel to the axis of each cotyledon, on the inside of the testa.

Source: Harris D.J. 1996. A Revision of the Irvingiaceae in Africa. Bulletin du Jardin botanique national de Belgique 65: 143-196.