Senegalia dudgeonii
Senegalia dudgeonii is a shrub or small tree of tropical West Africa and Chad, in the pea family, Fabaceae. It grows in seasonally dry environments, including Sudanian wooded grassland.[1]
Appearance
The Flora of West Tropical Africa describes a small tree reaching about 7.6 metres, with a short trunk and fissured brown bark. Younger twigs have reddish-brown bark that peels. The cream-coloured flowers form spikes generally shorter than the leaves. The flora places it in moister regions than those typical of Senegalia senegal.[1]
Classification
The plant was formerly placed in Acacia. The 2013 African acacia revision transferred it to Senegalia and explicitly recorded dudgeoni as the spelling used in the original 1911 publication. Thus Acacia dudgeoni and Acacia dudgeonii in this context are routes to the same species, not evidence of two different plants.[2]
Restoration research
A field experiment in Burkina Faso compared three ways of planting nursery-grown seedlings of this species and S. gourmaensis on degraded land. After one and a half years, reported survival of S. dudgeonii was 62.5% under standard planting, 50% in half-moon water-catching structures and 47.5% in zaï pits. Those results describe the particular experiment; they are not guaranteed survival rates for other sites.[3]
The species was also included in a four-species study of aboveground woody biomass in Burkina Faso. The researchers sampled 119 trees in total and developed equations relating tree measurements to biomass, to improve estimates of carbon stored in dry savanna vegetation. The sample total covers all four species.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. “Senegalia dudgeonii”, including Hutchinson and Dalziel (1958), Flora of West Tropical Africa. Accessed 9 October 2026.
- ↑ Kyalangalilwa, B.; Boatwright, J. S.; Daru, B. H.; Maurin, O.; van der Bank, M. (2013). “Phylogenetic position and revised classification of Acacia s.l. in Africa”. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 172: 500–523, p. 508. doi:10.1111/boj.12047. Accessed 9 October 2026.
- ↑ Bayen, P.; Lykke, A. M.; Moussa, B. M.; Bognounou, F.; Thiombiano, A. (2020). “Effects of three different restoration techniques on soil water content, survival and growth of Senegalia seedlings on semi-arid degraded lands in Burkina Faso”. Tropical Conservation Science 13. doi:10.1177/1940082920972081. Abstract in Aarhus University research portal. Accessed 9 October 2026.
- ↑ Bayen, P., and colleagues (2020). “Models for estimating aboveground biomass of four dryland woody species in Burkina Faso, West Africa”. Journal of Arid Environments 180: 104205. doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2020.104205. Abstract in Aarhus University research portal. Accessed 9 October 2026.