The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Ongokea is a genus of flowering plants, with one species Ongokea gore (Boleko). In the APG IV system, the genus is placed in the family Olacaceae. Other sources place it in the segregate family Aptandraceae.
Its native range is Western Tropical Africa to Angola, and is notable for the seeds of its edible fruits containing an industrially-useful oil that can undergo explosive polymerization reactions at elevated temperatures. This oil is curious for being rich in diacetylenic and hydroxy-diacetylenic fatty acids, primarily isanic and bolekic acid—that is, instead of a typical single-bonded fatty acid backbone, these acids contain multiple (thermally unstable) triple bonds.
Oil obtained from the seeds of Ongokea gore contains the fatty acid group, dia-acetylenic and has isanic, isanolic, ketoisanic, hydroxy acetylenic, and bolekic acids.
Oribatid mites is a dominant inhabitant within suspended soil that has accumulated on branches of the Ongokea gore tree in the rain forest of Gabon, other inhabitants include tectocepheus mites.
The seed oil and stem bark extracts are sometimes used as part of a purgative decoction.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ongokea by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
