YahGarden

Library · The Useful Plants of Nigeria, Part III (Kew Bulletin, Additional Series IX), 1915

Rauwolfia vomitoria, Afzel.; Fl. Trop. Afr. IV. Sect. 1, p. 115.

J. H. Holland, Part III, pp. 440–441. Transcribed from the page image on September 25, 2026, as printed.

Rauwolfia vomitoria, Afzel.; Fl. Trop. Afr. IV. Sect. 1, p. 115.

Vernac. names.—Ira (Ebute Metta, Millen); Akata (Benin, Thompson, Unwin); Asofeyeye (Lagos, Dawodu); Iraigbo (Nigeria, specimen in Herb. Kew, No. 11, Imp. Inst. 1905); Akake (Sierra Leone, Scott Elliot); Ounoudo (Gaboon, Klaine); Gonguon-Kiur, Embi-Siembi (Ivory Coast, Chevalier).

Ebute Metta, Lagos; Benin (Unwin, No. 32, 1906, Herb. Kew); Abeokuta, Ibadan, Old Calabar, Cross River, etc., and widely distributed in Upper and Lower Guinea from Senegambia to the Cameroons, the Gaboon and Lower Congo, extending to Uganda, and Mozambique.

Roots and leaves used medicinally for children, and in gonorrhoea, Lagos (Dawodu, No. 6, 1899, Herb. Kew). A “Craw craw” medicine Sierra Leone (Scott Elliot, No. 5501, 1892, Herb. Kew). Wood white when freshly cut, changing to rose colour on exposure, grain fine, density 0·361 (Chevalier, Bois Cote d'Ivoire, in Les Vég. Util. L'Afriq. Trop. Franç. fasc. v. 1909, p. 144).

Found as a small tree, sometimes a shrub, flowers white, River Nun (Barter, Herb. Kew), fruit scarlet, Nupe (Barter, l.c.), greenish flowers, Komaiko grounds, Lagos (Dawodu, No. 6, 1899, Herb. Kew).