Faidherbia albida (Delile) A. Chev.
Acacia albida Delile
Eng.: White acacia, apple-ring acacia. Spa.: Acacia. Fre.: Gommier blanc, cad, kad. Ara.: Alkharube, alk, charkok, atbnich, afrar, aalhbyed, amor, emil, atasa, sant, amraa, talh lebyed, âfrâr, karad, kharaaz, haraaz, harâza, harras, harass, avrerayé (Hassanía). Tamahaq: Ahatès, ahadès, ahtes, ateus, att, temahaq, azauo.
Tree up to 20(30) m in height, spiny, hermaphrodite, with straight trunk and usually single, and a crown with extended branches, at first obpyramidal turning umbrella-shaped. Trunk and branches with rugose and fissured bark, dark brown to greyish-brown, which does not peel. Young branches zigzagging, with smooth bark, white to ash grey, hairy or turning glabrous. Stipular spines (2)7-15(32) mm, paired, straight or curved, divergent, with red or brown-reddish tip, or with no stipular spines. Leaves 4-8 cm, alternate, bipinnate, with eglandular petiole, petiole and rachis pubescent, the latter with a gland at the insertion point of each pair of pinnae, with (3)4-7(10) pairs of pinnae, each with 9-15(23) pairs of leaflets 3.5-9(12) × 0.7-3(5) mm, oblong or oblong-obovate, with rounded and apiculate apex, subsessile, green or somewhat glaucous, pubescent on the upper side, underside and margins. Inflorescences spiciform, (3.5)4-14(16) cm long, axillary, shortly pedunculate —peduncle 8-25(40) mm—, whitish, cream or whitish-yellow, solitary or geminate, with hairy rachis, and numerous minute flowers. Calyx (1)1.5-2 mm, campanulate, greenish, glabrous or pubescent, with 5 triangular teeth. Corolla 3-4 mm, with 5 petals fused ⅔ from the base, oblong, acute, whitish, hairy on the abaxial side. Stamens numerous, fused at the base by the filaments into a pink tube c. 1 mm, with filament up to 6 mm long, whitish. Pod 5-35 cm × 12-50(60) mm, ± curved or falcate —twisted when dry—, not constricted between the seeds, highly compressed, obtuse, ochre, orange or reddish, glabrous, indehiscent, with 10-29 seeds separated by thin septa. Seeds 6-12 × 5-6 mm in diameter, ovoid, somewhat compressed, brown, smooth, shiny, with a pleurogram in U.
Flowering:
March to April in the Saharan zone, later in the tropics, after the summer rains.
Fruiting:
1-2 months after Flowering.
Habitat:
It prefers environments with subsoils with abundant water, therefore growing in ravines and alluvial deposits of desert areas, oases and savannahs, isolated or sometimes forming large masses; from sea level up to 2,000 m in altitude.
Distribution:
All of Africa, except for the area with Mediterranean climate and vegetation, and the Equatorial rainforest, Cape Verde Islands, Asian Mediterranean region (reaching towards the N to Syria) and the Arabian Peninsula. In North Africa, it grows in all of the Sahel and southern Sahara, reaching towards the N to SW Morocco (Jebel Uarksis), S of Algeria (up to the massifs of Ahaggar, Tassili-n-Ajjer and Tefedest), central and southern Libya and Egypt (along the valley of the Nile almost reaching Cairo).
Observations:
An important species for its ability to fix soils and nitrogen enrichment.
Conservation status:
A relatively common and widely distributed species, not considered threatened. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, it is listed as Least Concern (LC) at global level. In Algeria it is included in the List of protected non cultivated flora (Executive Decree 12-03 on 4-Jan-2012). In Mali it is included in its List of species that need authorization for commercial use (Decree 07-155/P-RM of 2007).