Editing Ricinodendron heudelotii (section)

== Description ==

Across its range the tree is light-demanding and typical of forest clearings, moist semi-deciduous and secondary forest, riverain forest and abandoned farmland.<sup id="cite_ref-5">[[#cite_note-5|[5]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-4|[4]]]</sup> Trees commonly stand 20-30 m tall, with reports to 30-45 m and exceptional records near 50 m; the bole reaches about 120-150 cm in diameter, mature trees develop buttresses, and some accounts describe long running surface roots.<sup>[[#cite_note-4|[4]]]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-6">[[#cite_note-6|[6]]]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-7">[[#cite_note-7|[7]]]</sup>

Growth can be rapid: seven-month-old nursery seedlings averaged about 0.90 m tall with taproots about 0.65 m long, and young homegarden trees in the same Cameroon study reached roughly 3.5 m at 2.5 years and about 17.5 m at 5 years.<sup id="cite_ref-8">[[#cite_note-8|[8]]]</sup> Branchlets are densely brown-hairy when young.<sup>[[#cite_note-6|[6]]]</sup> Juvenile leaves are simple, alternate and trilobate; mature leaves are palmately compound with three to five sessile, acuminate leaflets, about 10-15 cm long in one account and up to 10-40 cm long by 6-15 cm wide in another.<sup id="cite_ref-9">[[#cite_note-9|[9]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-6|[6]]]</sup> Older trunks carry thick, cracked bark.<sup>[[#cite_note-9|[9]]]</sup>

Flowers are yellowish white, about 4-5 mm across, borne in panicles that reach about 40 cm in males; female panicles are shorter and stouter.<sup>[[#cite_note-6|[6]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-7|[7]]]</sup> Male plants shed their leaves more completely than females.<sup>[[#cite_note-9|[9]]]</sup> The fruit is an indehiscent drupe with two or three lobes, about 2.5-3.5 by 4-5 cm, with a thick hard shell and, at maturity, a smell of overripe apples; dried fruits in the subspecies accounts measure 1.3-3.5 cm across.<sup>[[#cite_note-4|[4]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-7|[7]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-5|[5]]]</sup> Each lobe holds a one-seeded stone with a rounded, flat, hard-shelled seed, reddish-brown to black, roughly 1-1.5 cm across and sinuously ridged in an Ivorian account; seeds number about 5,200 per kilogram.<sup>[[#cite_note-6|[6]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-7|[7]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-9|[9]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-4|[4]]]</sup> Ripe-fruit color is reported differently: one monograph describes fruits green when young and black when ripe, while an Ivorian account describes yellow or yellow-green drupes at maturity.<sup>[[#cite_note-4|[4]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-9|[9]]]</sup>

Subsp. ''heudelotii'' occupies the western range from Senegal to Benin, with mostly three-lobed fruits; subsp. ''africanum'' runs from Nigeria eastwards and southwards, where two-lobed fruits are more common, and the two differ in locule and style number of the female flowers.<sup>[[#cite_note-4|[4]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-5|[5]]]</sup> Some accounts write the eastern taxon at variety rank, and one encyclopedia treatment lists a Kenya-Tanzania variety ''tomentellum''.<sup>[[#cite_note-7|[7]]]</sup><sup>[[#cite_note-3|[3]]]</sup>