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Boscia senegalensis
Senegal boscia (Boscia senegalensis, also called hanza) is an evergreen shrub or small tree from the Sahel and Sahara of West Africa, valued as a famine food. It is a wild, undomesticated species that grows in very dry, poor soils.
Boscia senegalensis, commonly known as hanza, is a member of the family Capparaceae.
The plant originated from West Africa. Still a traditional food plant in Africa, this little-known fruit has potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development and support sustainable landcare. It produces products for consumption, household needs, and medicinal and agricultural uses.
In times of severe drought and famine, when many other crops have failed, B. senegalensis can still survive and provide useful products. Ethnobotanical indigenous knowledge contributes to the importance of this plant to the Hausa peoples of Niger and Fulani herders in West Africa. During the famine of 1984–1985, it was reported that B. senegalensis was the most widely consumed famine food in both Sudan and Darfur, relied on by over 94% of people in northern Darfur.
B. senegalensis can benefit farmers because it keeps soil from laying bare and thus prevents soil erosion and degradation. It also buffers against wind, stabilizes sand dunes, offers shade to surrounding plants and cycles nutrients. In Niger, the trees are often cut or burned down by farmers in the dry season, in order to make space on the field for staple crops such as millet or sorghum. However, due to the strong surviving character of the tree, it reappears after the first rains and continues growing as a small bush.
Boscia senegalensis is a wild species, native to the Sahel region in Africa. It has not yet been domesticated. It currently grows in: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, and Togo.
Fruits are ready for human consumption at the beginning of the rainy season, when most crops are just being planted, and there is little other food available. Fruits can be consumed raw and cooked. Raw fruits initially contain a sweet pulp that then dries out to a sugary solid, difficult to separate from seed. Fruits are often cooked prior to consumption. Juice can also be extracted and boiled down into a butter-like consistency that can be mixed with millet and milk to make cakes. In Sudan, the fruit is fermented into a beer.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Boscia senegalensis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
