Keywords

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Plate 1
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Young imbe fruits

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Plate 2
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Young imbefruits, subsessile, old leaves and trunk

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Plate 3
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New leafy shoots of imbe

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Plate 4
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Leaves and fruit of imbe

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Plate 5
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Rough scaly, grey brown bark of imbe

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Plate 6
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Orange, globose, fruit of imbe arising from the branches

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Scientific Name

Garcinia livingstonei T. Anderson.

Synonyms

Garcinia angolensis Vesque, Garcinia baikieana Vesque, Garcinia bussei Engl. Garcinia ferrandii Chiov., Garcinia pallidinervia Engl., Garcinia pendula Engl.

Family

Clusiaceae

Common/English Names

African Mangosteen, Gupenja, Imbe, Inbe, Lowveld Mangosteen, Mwausungulu, Pama, Veld Mangosteen, Wild Mangosteen, Wild Plum

Vernacular Names

  • Czech: Garcínie Livingstonova;

  • French: Mangoustan Du Congo;

  • Ghana: Kulitia (Dagaari), Abriva (Gbe-Vhe), Lepenabul (Konkomba), Kulitia (Moore), Kombauadai (Wala);

  • Guinea: Guessé-Guessé, Kouru, Sungala (Manding-Maninka);

  • Malawi: Mphimbi (Chewa), Ntundura (Yao);

  • Mali: Sumé Sunsu (Manding-Bambara), Ko Rokna Ko (Tree), Sungala (Maninka);

  • Mozambique: Bimbi, Himbi, Muhimbi, Meto, Veto, Ntabaza, Petapelo, Mutotola;

  • Senegal: Pratone, Pratond (Konyagi), Kõkumõ, Sumésunsu (Manding-Bambara), Mãdãhõ, Sungala (Maninka);

  • South Africa: Geelmelkhout, Laeveldse Geelmelkhout (Afrikaans), Mokongono, Mokononga (Pedi), Mmimbi (Tsonga), Umphimbi, Ugobandlovu (Zulu);

  • Swahili: Mpekechu, Mutumbi;

  • Tanzania: Mchamvya, Mpekechu, Mpekeso, Mpeketo, Mtobozi;

  • Uganda: Etungan (Karamojong);

  • Upper Volta: Sumé Sunsu (Manding-Bambara);

  • Zambia: Mulyanganga (Bemba), Kikole (Kaonde), Muchindu, Mukwananga, Mutugwa (Lozi), Mukwananga, Mutugwa, Mukoningo, Mulongwe, Musunka (Tonga), Mpule (Nyanja);

  • Zanzibar: Mutumbi;

  • Zimbawe: Himbi, Munhinzwa.

Origin/Distribution

The species is native to a broad area of tropical Africa: from Natal (Zululand), Swaziland and Transvaal to Kenya, Uganda and Somalia Zanzibar; westward to Bechuanaland Protectorate, Southwest Africa (Caprivi Strip), Angola, Northern Rhodesia and Belgian Congo (Katanga). It also occurs from French Guinea to Nigeria. It has been introduced for trial purposes in Indonesia, India, Singapore, northern Australia and elsewhere in the tropics.

Agroecology

Imbe thrives in a climate of warm winters and hot summers and is found from sea level to 1,050 m elevation. It naturally occurs where mean annual temperature is 20–22.5°C and frost never occurs but the tree has been reported to withstand brief periods of light frost without serious injury. It is found in areas with rainfall ranging from 200 to above 1,000 mm. Imbe is quite tolerant of drought, bush fires and heavy rain. It has been reported to withstand dry periods of up to 5 months. Imbe occurs on a wide range of soil types from acid sandy maritime soils, alluvial soils along riverbanks to alkaline and rocky soils. It grows in open coastal and riverine forests and in South Africa veld and frequently in riparian and munga, mopane woodland and termite mounds in Zambia. The tree does respond to good cultural practices.

Edible Plant Parts and Uses

The fruit has an acid-sweet juicy pulp with an apricot-like flavour. The pulp is eaten fresh or cooked with porridge. The fruits are also made into drinks, preserves, jams, pies, and assorted desserts. In East Africa and in Mozambique, it is also made into fermented beverages and alcohol. Some examples include a purplish, claret-like wine and a liqueur made by soaking the fruits in alcohol and thickening the extract with syrup.

Botany

It is an evergreen, glabrous, dioecious (male and female tree), much-branched tree, growing to 4.5–18 m tall, with rough, grey-brown, scaly bark (Plates 1–2, 5) and a dense spreading crown. It has an interesting branching pattern, with three lateral branches being produced at right angles to the trunk at each node and has grey-brown bark which exudes a yellow-red latex when bruised. The leaves are borne in opposite pairs or whorls of 3–4, each leaf being blue-green, coriaceous, petiolate. Lamina is very variable, lanceolate or oblanceolate to oblong or obovate (or rarely  ±  orbicular), 6–11 cm long by 3–5.5 cm wide, emarginate or rounded to acute or apiculate at the apex, cuneate to rounded at the base, sometimes with shallowly crenate margin and waxy (Plates 2 and 3). Flowers are polygamous, in fascicles of 5–15 or more in the axils of the older leaves and on the old wood with 4–20 (35) mm. long pedicels varying in thickness. Sepals are unequal, 4 in 2 opposite and decussate pairs. Petals usually 5 but sometimes up to 8, are 3–7 (9) mm long, obovate to orbicular, greenish-white to cream or pale yellow, with translucent, orange or reddish longitudinal glandular lines. Male flowers have numerous apparently free stamens inserted in a fleshy cushion formed by the united fasciclodes. Female flowers with fewer staminodes inserted in a fleshy fasciclodal ring below the ovary; ovary is globose, 2 (3)-locular, surmounted by a bilobed fleshy stigma. Berry is obovoid to globose, 2·5–3 cm. in diameter, green turning to orange-yellow, orange to reddish-orange (Plates 4–6), 1–2 seeded and thin skin filled with yellow latex. Seeds are cylindric or plano-ovoid, 1·5–2 cm. long surrounded by ­acid-sweet, juicy orange pulp.

Nutritive/Medicinal Properties

The juicy fruit pulp is acid-sweet, pleasant tasting and refreshing. Fruits have been reported to be rich in carbohydrates (mainly sugars) and have moderate mineral content (FAO 1988).

Many of the phytochemicals from the plant exhibit various pharmacological activities.

Anticancer Activity

Thirteen known compounds, including seven benzophenones [guttiferone A (1), guttiferone K (2), xanthochymol (3), guttiferone E (4), cycloxanthochymol (5), isoxanthochymol (6), and gambogenone (7)], five biflavonoids [amentoflavone (8), 3,8′′-biapigenin (9), (+)-volkensiflavone (10), (+)-morelloflavone (11), and (+)-fukugiside (12)], and the xanthone derivative alloathyriol (13), were identified from the fruits of Garcinia livingstonei (Yang et al. 2010). Benzophenones 1 and 2 exhibited strong cytotoxic activity against HCT-116 and HT-29 human colon cancer cell lines with IC50 values between 5 and 10 μM, and somewhat weaker activity with SW-480 cells (IC50 values ranging from 18 to 25 μM). The fruit extract of G. livingstoneii showed moderate to mild cytotoxic activities against A549, DU145, KB and Kbivin human vincristine resistant nasopharygneal cancer cell lines with 50% cytotoxic (CC50) values ranging from 5.7 to 20.0 μg/ml (Magadula and Suleimani 2010).

Antiviral Activity

Recent scientific studies reported G. livingstonei to be a rich source of guttiferones, polyisoprenylated benzophenone derivatives. The guttiferones A–E and were found to inhibit in-vitro the cytopathic effects of HIV infection (Gustafson et al. 1992). The fruit extract of G. livingstonei showed significant anti-HIV-1 activity with EC50 value of 2.25 μg/ml (Magadula and Suleimani 2010). Root and stem extract of G. livingstonei showed in-vitro inhibitory effect against HIV (Magadula and Tewtrakul 2010). At 30 μg/ml concentration the root and stem extracts exhibited 44.5% and 34.3% inhibition and at 100 μg/ml, had inhibition of 87% and 89.5% respectively.

Central Nervous System Activity

Guttiferone A also showed potent anticholinesterase properties towards acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butylcholinesterase (AChE) with IC 50 of 2.77 μM which was more active than galanthamine (IC50  =  8.5 μM) against BChE (Lenta et al. 2007).

Antimicrobial Activity

Guttiferone A also had antimicrobial activity. It presented activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus with IC50 values of 2.4 μg/ml and 2.4 μg/ml, respectively (Naldoni et al. 2009).

Antiparasitic Activity

From the root bark of Garcinia livingstonei, three xanthone dimers were isolated: Garcilivin A-C were structurally related to 1,4,5-trihydroxy-3-(3-methylbut-2-enyl)-9 H-xanthen-9-one (Sordat-Diserens et al. 1992a, b). The dimeric xanthone garcilivin A showed a higher and non-selective antiparasitic activity and cytotoxicity (IC50 2.0 μM against MRC-5 (human lung fibroblast) cells) than its diastereoisomer garcilivin C (IC50 52.3 μM).

Guttiferone A exhibited trypanocidal activity against epimastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiologic agent of Chagas’ disease (Abe et al. 2004). Guttiferone A also showed particularly strong leishmanicidal activity in-vitro, with IC50 values (0.2 μM and 0.16 μM, respectively) comparable to that of the reference compound, miltefosine (0.46 μM) (Lenta et al. 2007). Also a new biflavonoid, ent-naringeninyl-(I-3a,II-8)-4′-O-methylnaringenin, along with five known xanthones and two known biflavonoids, were isolated from the root bark (Mbwambo et al. 2006). This new compound showed moderate activity against Plasmodium falciparum. Anti-trypanosomal activity (IC50 0.87 μM) was observed for the xanthone 1,4,5-trihydroxy-3-(3-methylbut-2-enyl)-9  H-xanthen-9-one.

The tree is used in traditional medicine, and in particular the powdered root is used as an aphrodisiac and an infusion made from roots has been used to treat abdominal pains during pregnancy and after giving birth. Extracts from flowers and leaves have been reported to have antibiotic pro­perties. The fruit has been used to treat mumps.

Other Uses

Imbe is also used as a shade tree and ornamental landscape tree – the stiff, unsymmetrical growth and the grey-green stiff foliage give the tree an unusual and striking appearance. The tree has a bulbous base underground which holds the soil and acts as erosion control. The tree is also used for fuel-wood. Imbe is occasionally used as a grafting root stock for mangosteen, Garcinia mangostana. Leaves and young shoots are used as fodder by browsing animals. The wood although susceptible to borers has been used as a general-purpose timber for implements, fencing posts and rails. The yellow oily sap is used in the manufacture of arrow poison and to decorate arrows.

In Zimbabwe, the tree is revered socially, its deep root system and the fact the tree is not easily ripped up characterises immortality and resistance. For this reason a himbe plant is among the gifts offered to a newlywed couple to bless that the new bride will never leave her husband’s house.

Comments

The species is propagated by seed, air layering or grafting.