This disc-shaped seed with about 2 cm in diameter was bought as a spice by the botanists in my department at a market in Cameroon. For the last ten years it has been in the comparative collection of archaeobotany of Africa at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, and it still has a strong smell of garlic. That is why in English the plant is called “Garlic Tree” and in French “Arbre à ail”.

All parts of the tree smell like garlic and are used locally as a spice. Leaves are cooked as vegetables. The specific epithet “zenkeri” refers to the botanist Georg August Zenker, after whom the species was named. Zenker noted in a description of 1900 that the tree is also called “Olom” in Yaoundé (Cameroon).

• Edible Seeds
• Also edible Leaves
• Type of fruit Legume
• Culinary Group Spice
• Taste aromatic
• Trivial Names Dividia, D'arbre d'ail tropical, Garlic Tree, Arbre à ail, Olom
• Size 2 cm
• Taxonomy Fabaceae (legume family) Scorodophloeus zenkeri, Syn. Uapaca heudelotii
• Origin Guinea, Congo Basin (Map)
• Locality Archäologie und Archäobotanik Afrikas, Goethe-Universität 2015