A forest tree in the same genus as the more widespread bush mango, bearing a fruit with a fat-rich seed kernel.
Irvingia smithii (family Irvingiaceae), a relative of the bush mango or ogbono tree, is a tree 20 to 30 metres tall with a trunk usually up to 1 metre across, buttresses up to 1 metre long, and branches starting less than 5 metres from the ground. It is gathered from the wild for food, timber and medicine. It always grows beside water: on riverbanks in the savanna and in seasonally flooded and riverine forest. Its range runs from Nigeria east to Sudan and south to Angola and the Congo.
Source: Useful Tropical Plants database (Fern, K.).
The kernels are dried and ground, like those of related Irvingia species, into a thickener used for soup.
A wild forest tree of West and Central Africa.