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Cola verticillata
Also called Owé Cola
Cola verticillata is a species of tree in the genus Cola, of the family Malvaceae, native to the forests of tropical Africa. Common names include owe cola, slippery cola and mucilage cola. It was first described by the Danish botanist Peter Thonning as Sterculia verticillata, and was given its current name of Cola verticillata by the Austrian botanist Otto Stapf and the French botanist Auguste Chevalier.
Cola verticillata is native to tropical West Central Africa; its range includes Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. It grows in lowland forests, at altitudes of up to 1,000 m (3,300 ft), particularly near streams and in swamps.
The timber of Cola verticillata is hard and white; in southern Nigeria it is used to make fetish images. The trees are sometimes planted in villages, the nuts, which contain significant amounts of caffeine, being gathered from the wild when ripe and used to make a drink.
Abata cola · Anomalous cola · Cola attiensis · Cola boxiana · Congo Cola · Cola cabindensis · Cola cecidiifolia · Club Fruited Cola · Cola duparquetiana · Cola elegans · Cola gigas · Cola glabra
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cola verticillata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
