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Telfairia pedata
Also called Zanzibar Oilvine, Queen's Nut
Oysternut is a dioecious African climbing vine that can reach 30 metres, grown for its very large edible fruit, seeds and oil. It needs a wet tropical climate and is generally grown in the wild or in plantations rather than as a pot plant.
Telfairia pedata, commonly known as oysternut (alternately spelled as 'oyster nut', etc.), queen's nut, Zanzibar oilvine (alternately spelled as 'oil vine', etc.), kweme or kulekula, is a dioecious African liana which can grow up to 30 metres long, having purple-pink fringed flowers, and very large (30–90 cm × 15–25 cm), many-seeded, drooping, ellipsoid berries which can weigh up to 15 kg (though one old source from 1882 claimed up to 60 lbs). It is valuable for having edible fruit, seeds and oil.
Propagation is by seed which are black to brown-red, recalcitrant (i.e., killed by drying) and vary from 1g to 68g, with the smaller ones tending to have greater viability. They cannot survive desiccation and fungi are the main cause of seed loss.
Telfairia pedata is found in high-precipitation tropical locales, in coastal and riverine forest lowlands. It was also reported to grow in elevations between 900 and 1800 m above sea level with annual rainfall of 1000 to 1400 mm.
The fruits of Telfairia pedata are edible, but the principal value is found in the seeds (or "nuts") and the seeds' oil. The flavourful seeds are prepared in various culinary ways (cooked, roasted, pickled, etc.), but can also be eaten raw, and are given to nursing mothers to facilitate milk production. The versatile, mildly sweet oil from the seeds (marketed as ‘oyster-nut oil’ or ‘koémé de Zanzibar’) is used in cooking, cosmetics, soap and candle-making, and as a gastric and anti-rheumatism medicine; it is believed, by Chaga people of Tanzania, to be beneficial to give a tonic made from the seeds to women who have just given birth. It common known as Makungu in Pare mountains where Pare people eat them fresh and sometimes roast to eat alone or cook with other food. The left-over cake of seeds from oil pressing is rich in fat and protein, and used as livestock fodder.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Telfairia pedata 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.
