A small savanna tree or shrub in the dipterocarp family, found across the Guinean woodland zone from Mali to northern Nigeria.
Monotes kerstingii (family Dipterocarpaceae) is a shrub or tree with an open, rounded crown, usually 3 to 6 metres tall but up to 15 metres, with a usually poorly shaped trunk up to 60 cm across, occasionally 90 cm. It is sometimes gathered from the wild for local medicine and wood. It grows from Senegal and Mali to the Central African Republic, southern Sudan and northern Uganda, in wooded savanna and dry open forest, on the slopes of valleys and gullies on broken laterite, and sometimes in handsome stands with doka (Isoberlinia doka, akovor in this archive) on deep sandy clay. It is often found on reddish, well-drained soils, recovers after bush fires, and lives in partnership with root fungi (mycorrhizae).
Source: Useful Tropical Plants database (Fern, K.).
Bark decoction is used traditionally for dysentery.
A wild savanna tree; its close-grained wood is used mainly as firewood and for minor construction.