Kentucky coffee tree seeds

Kentucky coffee tree, also known as american coffee berry, kentucky mahogany, nicker tree, and stump tree / Gymnocladus dioicus - a tree up to 30 m tall, with a slender trunk and a luxurious, free-standing, rounded crown, reaching 8 m in diameter. The bark on the trunks is light gray, deeply fissured, on the shoots it is darker, with dense pubescence. Remarkable are the double-pinnate leaves, up to 1 m long, glabrous on top, leathery, pinkish when blooming, light green in summer, pale yellow in autumn. The leaves develop later than other types of legumes.

The plant is dioecious. The flowers are small, yellowish-white, with a lemon scent. Males - in terminal panicles up to 10 cm, females - in longer terminal racemes up to 30 cm.

The fruits are red-brown, bluish-black leathery beans up to 20 cm long when ripe. Inside, the hard, shiny brown seeds are surrounded by a dark brown sticky pulp or green jelly-like liquid that can be used as soap or shampoo.

In addition to its soap benefits, bunduk is a good honey plant. Bunduk flowers are small, yellowish-white and emit a pleasant lemon aroma. Blooms in May-June for 7-10 days.

After roasting, the seeds (poisonous in their raw form!) can be used as a coffee substitute. The drink tastes like coffee and cocoa.

Grows quickly. Light-loving, moderately drought-resistant, tolerates partial flooding. Frost resistance is average (up to -25...-35°C), winter-hardy. Prefers deep, fairly fertile fresh soil.

Used as a beautiful, original tree in single and small group plantings in parks and alleys. At home it is grown as a plant in closed ground.

In culture since 1818. It goes well with honey locust, chestnuts, silver maple, oaks, ash, hackberry, etc.

All parts of the bunduk are poisonous! Because of cytisine, and it decomposes only at temperatures above 260°C. Therefore, drying does not remove it. The fruits are well fried for consumption. Otherwise, you can get fatal poisoning. But it can be used as a detergent - there will be no irritation.

Landing. Several variants:

1. Without stratification. The seeds are large, hard, with a very dense shell, and require disruption of the shell for germination, which is usually achieved by scalding two or three times with boiling water or treating with sulfuric acid. After scalding, the seeds must be soaked in water before sowing until they are completely swollen or pecked.

A single treatment with concentrated sulfuric acid for 10 minutes gives a higher percentage of swollen and less rotten seeds than scalding.

2. Seed germination - 95-100%. For this result, you need to scarify the seeds - damage the upper hard shell with a file and soak in water until completely swollen. Then plant in warm soil (late April - May).

If this is not done, pecking will last for several years and will be reduced to 30-35%.

3. The experience of the dendrological nursery of the Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova has shown that the most effective pre-sowing treatment of Bunduk seeds is two-month stratification at normal temperatures - from 0 to +5°. After this, the seeds peck together. To avoid rotting during stratification, it is necessary to ensure that the seeds are well mixed with sand and do not come into contact with each other. The layer of sand with seeds should not exceed 30 cm. The sowing time is late - late April - May, when the soil warms up well.