ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the information on uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecol-ogy, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of Cola Verticillata. Seeds, indistinguishable from true cola in appearance, are edible, though very bitter and considered unfit to eat. Nuts are used to make a beverage. Containing caffeine, this species no doubt shares some pharmacological properties and folk uses with other Cola species. Nuts contain a fair proportion of caffeine. Trees large, 8 to 10(to 25) m tall; branches sparsely puberulent, rarely cylindrical, brownish dark-red, often weeping. Leaves verticillate in threes or fours, opposite in the lower nodes, simple, entire, subcoriaceous to coriaceous; stipules 5 to 6 mm long, puberulent on lower surface; petiole 2 to 6 mm long, sparsely puberulent. Panicles axillary, isolated in groups of 2 to 3; flowers small, 1 to 3 cm long, puberulent; bracts oval, cuspidate, concave, about 6 mm long, more or less persistent.
