Sudan Gum Arabic

Where does Sudan Gum Arabic grow?

Found in: Africa, Angola, Asia, Australia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central Africa, Central African Republic, CAR, Chad, China, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, East Africa, Egypt, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Haiti, India, Iran, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, North Africa, Oman, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Rwanda, Sahel, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Southern Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, West Africa, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Notes: There are about 1,350 Acacia species. Over 1,000 occur in Australia. Also as Mimosaceae.

Status: It is a significant food in some places.

Growing Sudan Gum Arabic

Cultivation: It is grown from seed. The seed need treatment to break the hard seed coat. This is by putting the seeds in water and soaking overnight then planting the seeds immediately. Dry seed can be stored if kept cool, dry and insect free.

Edible Uses: The gum is eaten. It is highly nutritious. People eating 200 g a day can survive for several days. Gum arabic has the important use in food products that it enables oil and water to mix. The gum has little taste. It is used in confectionary and chewing gum. The soft inner bark is also chewed. The seeds are eaten as a vegetable. They can be dried and stored.

Production: It is slow growing. It can be pruned. Gum production is excellent when growing on poor soils. The gum can be collected by cutting the bark. It is collected about one month after cutting the bark. It produces the most gum in the dry season. Highest yields are obtained from trees over 6 years old.

Nutrition Info

References

Addis, G., Asfaw, Z & Woldu, Z., 2013, Ethnobotany of Wild and Semi-wild Edible Plants of Konso Ethnic Community, South Ethiopia. Ethnobotany Research and Applications. 11:121-141 (As Acacia senegal)

Addis. G. et al, 2013, The Role of Wild and Semi-wild Edible Plants in Household Food Sovereignty in Hamer and Konso Communities, South Ethiopia. Ethnobotany Research & Applications. 11:251-271 (As Acacia senegal)

Al-Fatimi, M. A., Wild Edible Plants Traditionall Collected and Used in Southern Yemen. Research Square. (As Acacia senegal)

Asfaw, Z. and Tadesse, M., 2001, Prospects for Sustainable Use and Development of Wild Food Plants in Ethiopia. Economic Botany, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 47-62 (As Acacia senegal)

Ambasta S.P. (Ed.), 2000, The Useful Plants of India. CSIR India. p 7 (As Acacia senegal)

Bahru, T., et al, 2013, Wild Edible Plants: Sustainable Use and Management by Indigenous Communities in and the Buffer Area of Awah National Park, Ethiopia. Ethiop. J. Sci., 36(2): 93-108

Ballal, M. E., et al, 2014, Ethno-botany of Natural Forests of Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan State, Sudan. Journal of Forest Poducts & Industries. 3(1):13-19 (As Acacia senegal)

Beche D, Gebeyehu G, Feyisa K., 2016, Indigenous Utilization and Management of Useful Plants in and around Awash National Park, Ethiopia. J Plant Biol Soil Health. 3(1):12.

Bekele-Tesemma A., Birnie, A., & Tengnas, B., 1993, Useful Trees and Shrubs for Ethiopia. Regional Soil Conservation Unit. Technical Handbook No 5. p 62 (As Acacia senegal)

Bernholt, H. et al, 2009, Plant species richness and diversity in urban and peri-urban gardens of Niamey, Niger. Agroforestry Systems 77:159-179 (As Acacia senegal)

Bircher, A. G. & Bircher, W. H., 2000, Encyclopedia of Fruit Trees and Edible Flowering Plants in Egypt and the Subtropics. AUC Press. p 5 (As Acacia senegal)

Bodkin, F., 1991, Encyclopedia Botanica. Cornstalk publishing, p 33 (As Acacia senegal)

BROKENSHA & RILEY, (As Acacia senegal)

Brouk, B., 1975, Plants Consumed by Man. Academic Press, London. p 260 (As Acacia senegal)

Brown, D., 2002, The Royal Horticultural Society encyclopedia of Herbs and their uses. DK Books. p 98 (As Acacia senegal)

Burkill, H. M., 1985, The useful plants of west tropical Africa, Vol. 3. Kew. (As Acacia senegal)

COSSALTER, (As Acacia senegal)

Dale, I. R. and Greenway, P. J., 1961, Kenya Trees and Shrubs. Nairobi. p 293 (As Acacia senegal)

Dalziel, J. M., 1937, The Useful plants of west tropical Africa. Crown Agents for the Colonies London. (As Acacia senegal)

Dharani, N., 2002, Field Guide to common Trees & Shrubs of East Africa. Struik. p 193 (As Acacia senegal)

Dobriyal, M. J. R. & Dobriyal, R., 2014, Non Wood Forest Produce an Option for Ethnic Food and Nutritional Security in India. Int. J. of Usuf. Mngt. 15(1):17-37 (As Acacia senegal)

Etherington, K., & Imwold, D., (Eds), 2001, Botanica's Trees & Shrubs. The illustrated A-Z of over 8500 trees and shrubs. Random House, Australia. p 56 (As Acacia senegal)

Facciola, S., 1998, Cornucopia 2: a Source Book of Edible Plants. Kampong Publications, p 151 (As Acacia senegal)

Feyssa, D. H., et al, 2011, Seasonal availability an consumption of wild edible plants in semiarid Ethiopia; Implications to food security and climate change adaptation. Journal of Horticulture and Forestry 3(5): 138-149

Fowler, D. G., 2007, Zambian Plants: Their Vernacular Names and Uses. Kew. p 33 (var. leiorachis)

Fox, F. W. & Young, M. E. N., 1982, Food from the Veld. Delta Books. p 201 (As Acacia senegal)

Gaisberger, H., et al, 2017, Spatially explicit multi-threat assessment of food tree species in Burkina Faso: A fine-scale approach. PLoS ONE 12 (9): e0184457

Gemedo-Dalle, T., et al, 2005, Plant Biodiversity and Ethnobotany of Borana Pastoralists in Southern Oromia, Ethiopia. Economic Botany 59(1) pp. 43-65 (As Acacia senegal)

Hall, N. et al, 1972, The Use of Trees and Shrubs in the Dry Country of Australia, AGPS, Canberra. p 342 (As Acacia senegal)

Hedrick, U.P., 1919, (Ed.), Sturtevant's edible plants of the world. p 20 (As Acacia senegal)

ILDIS Legumes of the World http:www;ildis.org/Legume/Web (As Acacia senegal)

Katende, A.B., Birnie, A & Tengnas B., 1995, Useful Trees and Shrubs for Uganda. Identification, Propagation and Management for Agricultural and Pastoral Communities. Technical handbook No 10. Regional Soil Conservation Unit, Nairobi, Kenya. p 54 (As Acacia senegal)

Kiple, K.F. & Ornelas, K.C., (eds), 2000, The Cambridge World History of Food. CUP p 1713 (As Acacia senegal)

Krishen P., 2006, Trees of Delhi, A Field Guide. DK Books. p 273 (As Acacia senegal)

Kuhnlein, H. V., et al, 2009, Indigenous Peoples' food systems. FAO Rome p 239 (As Acacia senegal)

Le Houerou, H. N., (Ed.), 1980, Browse in Africa. The current state of knowledge. International Livestock Centre for Africa, Ethiopia. p 162 (As Acacia senegal)

Long, C., 2005, Swaziland's Flora - siSwati names and Uses http://www.sntc.org.sz/flora/ (As Acacia senegal)

Lulekal, E., et al, 2011, Wild edible plants in Ethiopia: a review on their potential to combat food insecurity. Afrika Focus - Vol. 24, No 2. pp 71-121 (As Acacia senegal)

Mahony, D., 1991, Trees of Somalia. A Field Guide for Development Workers. Oxfam Research Paper 3. p 9 (As Acacia senegal)

Mannheimer, C. A. & Curtis. B.A. (eds), 2009, Le Roux and Muller's Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Namibia. Windhoek: Macmillan Education Namibia. p 118 (As Acacia senegal)

Marwah, R. G., et al, 2006, Antioxidant capacity of some edible and wound healing plants in Oman. Journal of Food Chemistry. (As Acacia senegal)

Maundu, P. et al, 1999, Traditional Food Plants of Kenya. National Museum of Kenya. p 45 (As Acacia senegal)

Maydell, H. von, 1990 Trees and shrubs of the Sahel: their characteristics and uses. Margraf. p 133 (As Acacia senegal)

Mbuya, L.P., Msanga, H.P., Ruffo, C.K., Birnie, A & Tengnas, B., 1994, Useful Trees and Shrubs for Tanzania. Regional Soil Conservation Unit. Technical Handbook No 6. p 66 (As Acacia senegal)

Morgan, W. T. W., 1981, Ethnobotany of the Turkana: Use of plants by a Pastoral People and Their Livestock in Kenya. Economic Botany 35(1):96-130 (As Acacia senegal)

Molla, A., Ethiopian Plant Names. http://www.ethiopic.com/aplants.htm (As Acacia senegal)

Mutie, F. G., 2020, Conservation of Wild Food Plants and Their Potential for Combatting Food Insecurity in Kenya as Exemplified by the Drylands of Kitui County. Plants 2020, 9, 1017

Nassif, F., & Tanji, A., 2013, Gathered food plants in Morocco: The long forgotten species in Ethnobotanical Research. Life Science Leaflets 3:17-54 (As Acacia senegal)

Ojelel, S., et al, 2019, Wild edible plants used by communities in and around selected forest reserves of Teso-Karamoja region, Uganda. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2019) 15:3 (As Senegalia senegal)

Omer, M., 2011, Diversity of Woody Species, Local Knowledge and Management Practices in Different Land Use Systems of Awbare Wereda, Jig-Jiga Zone of Somali Region, Ethiopia. M. Sc. these Addis Abba University p 47

Palgrave, K.C., 1996, Trees of Southern Africa. Struik Publishers. p 250 (As Acacia senegal)

Palmer, E and Pitman, N., 1972, Trees of Southern Africa. Vol. 2. A.A. Balkema, Cape Town p 745 (As Acacia senegal)

Peters, C. R., O'Brien, E. M., and Drummond, R.B., 1992, Edible Wild plants of Sub-saharan Africa. Kew. p 128 (As Acacia senegal)

Plants of Haiti Smithsonian Institute http://botany.si.edu/antilles/West Indies (As Acacia senegal)

Plowes, N. J. & Taylor, F. W., 1997, The Processing of Indigenous Fruits and other Wildfoods of Southern Africa. in Smartt, L. & Haq. (Eds) Domestication, Production and Utilization of New Crops. ICUC p 184 (As Acacia senegal)

Purseglove, J.W., 1968, Tropical Crops Dicotyledons, Longmans. p 209 (As Acacia senegal)

RILEY & BROKENSHA (As Acacia senegal)

Roodt, V., 1998, Trees & Shrubs of the Okavango Delta. Medicinal Uses and Nutritional value. The Shell Field Guide Series: Part 1. Shell Botswana. p 195 (As Acacia senegal)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1999). Survey of Economic Plants for Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (SEPASAL) database. Published on the Internet; http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/ceb/sepasal/internet [Accessed 27th April 2011] (As Acacia senegal)

Ruffo, C. K., Birnie, A. & Tengnas, B., 2002, Edible Wild Plants of Tanzania. RELMA p 88 (As Acacia senegal)

Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 60

SAXENA; (As Acacia senegal)

Shah, G.L. et al, 1981, An account of the Ethnobotany of Saurashtra in Gujarat State (India). J. Econ. Tax. Bot. Vol 2 pp 173-182 (As Acacia senegal)

SHANKARNARAYAN & SAXENA. (As Acacia senegal)

Sharma, R. & Kaur, S., 2016, Antimicrobial and phytochemical screening of Trikuta- traditional food of western Rajasthan. Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge Vol. 16(2), April 2017, pp. 270-276 (As Acacia senegal)

Shumsky, S., et al, 2014, Institutional factors affecting wild edible plant (WEP) harvest and consumption in semi-arid Kenya. Land Use Policy 38(2014) 48-69

Singh, D. et al, 2014, Local wild plants from the Thar Desert for improved health and food security. in Promotion of Underutilized Indigenous Food Resources for Food Security and Nutrition in Asia and Pacific. FAO. Bangkok p 147 (As Acacia senegal)

Smith, P.M., 1979, Wattle, in Simmonds, N.W., (ed), Crop Plant Evolution. Longmans. London. p 311 (As Acacia senegal)

Sp. pl. 4(2):1077. 1806 (As Acacia senegal)

Swaziland's Flora Database http://www.sntc.org.sz/flora (As Acacia senegal)

Usher, G., 1974, A Dictionary of Plants Used by Man. Constable. p 14 (As Acacia senegal)

van Wyk, B, van Wyk, P, and van Wyk B., 2000, Photographic guide to Trees of Southern Africa. Briza. p 42 (As Acacia senegal)

van Wyk, B., 2005, Food Plants of the World. An illustrated guide. Timber press. p 39 (As Acacia senegal)

Van Wyk, Br. and van Wyk P., 2009, Field Guide to Trees of Southern Africa. Struik Nature. p 488

van Wyk, Ben-Erik, 2019, The diversity and multiple uses of southern African legumes. Australian Systematic Botany, 2019, 32, 519–546

Vickery, M.L. and Vickery, B., 1979, Plant Products of Tropical Africa, Macmillan. p 97 (As Acacia senegal)

World Checklist of Useful Plant Species 2020. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/sea/products/afdbases/af (As Acacia senegal)