Turraeanthus africanus
species of plant
Turraeanthus africanus is a species of plant in the family Meliaceae, also known by the common names avodiré, apeya, engan, agbe, lusamba, wansenwa, African satinwood, and African white mahogany.
Nomenclature
Although the species epithet given by François Pellegrin in the first publication is africana, it should be amended into masculine form, i.e. africanus per the ICN (ed. 2017, Art. 62.2 (c)): "Compounds ending in ‑ceras, ‑dendron, ‑nema, ‑stigma, ‑stoma, and other neuter words, are neuter. An exception is made for names ending in ‑anthos (or ‑anthus), ‑chilos (‑chilus or ‑cheilos), and ‑phykos (‑phycos or ‑phycus), which ought to be neuter, because that is the gender of the Greek words άνθος, anthos, χείλος, cheilos, and φύκος, phykos, but are treated as masculine in accordance with tradition."
Description
The species is found in Angola, Benin, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. The genus name is derived from the botanist Turra (1607–1688) of Padua, Italy and anthos, a Greek word meaning flower.
Turraeanthus africanus is described as a tree of the rain forest, typically 115 ft (35 m), and having a trunk diameter of 2 to 3 ft (0.61 to 0.91 m). The wood of this tree has a specific gravity of 0.48. It is commonly creamy white or pale yellow but will darken upon exposure to ultra-violet light to a golden yellow color.
The public source identifies “Turraeanthus africanus” as species of plant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Turraeanthus, africanus and species.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7856210. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2017, 1607 and 1688.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Turraeanthus africanus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.