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Wenge

Millettia laurentii

Wenge
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain

Millettia laurentii is a large legume tree of wet tropical West and Central Africa, valued mainly for its dark timber (wenge). It is a timber tree rather than a garden or houseplant, and it is listed as endangered because of habitat loss and overharvesting.

Family
Fabaceae (Pea & bean family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Needs regular moisture while young and steady rainfall in its native forest habitat.
Soil
Deep, fertile, well-drained forest soil.
Temperature
22–30 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Hard
Native range
WC. Trop. Africa
Climate
wet tropical

About

Millettia laurentii is a legume tree from Africa and is native to the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. The species is listed as "endangered" in the IUCN Red List, principally due to the destruction of its habitat and over-exploitation for timber. Wenge, a dark coloured wood, is the product of Millettia laurentii. Other names sometimes used for wenge include faux ebony, dikela, mibotu, bokonge, awong, and Chinese jichi wood (鸡翅木). The wood's distinctive colour is standardised as a "wenge" colour in many systems.

Other Millettia plants

Sangkala

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Millettia laurentii 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.

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