Flora of Benin

Napoleonaea imperialis is a small, evergreen tropical West African tree in the family Lecythidaceae, native to Africa. It grows to some 6m in height, with a dense, low-branching crown, and occurs from Benin, Nigeria, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo southwards to Angola. The showy flowers have two inner rows of petals and vary in colour, usually creamy yellow along the circumference, with the center ranging from red to apricot to purple - they develop either on young branches or grow directly from the old wood of the trunk. The fruit is a berry, dark orange or reddish-brown

Homalium dalzielii is a species of plant in the family Salicaceae. It is found in Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon. It can grow up to 40 feet high.

Encephalartos barteri is a species of cycad that is native to Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo.

Rutidea nigerica is a species of plant in the family Rubiaceae. It is found in Benin, Cameroon, and Nigeria. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Coccinia intermedia is a species of Coccinia which was first described in 2011 by Norbert Holstein.

Sphenocentrum is a monotypic genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Menispermaceae. The only species is Sphenocentrum jollyanum. Its native range is Western Tropical Africa to Nigeria.

Dalbergia setifera is a low growing shrub in the family Fabaceae. It is found only in Ghana. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Warneckea memecyloides is a species of plant in the family Melastomataceae. It is found in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Ghana, and Nigeria. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Placodiscus boya is a species of plant in the family Sapindaceae. It is found in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Oligocodon is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Rubiaceae. Its native range is Benin to Central Congo.

Digitaria iburua, commonly known as iburu, is a grass species native to west and west-central tropical Africa, which is cultivated as a grain crop known as black fonio. Iburu (D. iburua) is closely related to white fonio (D. exilis), a cereal that is more widely grown across West Africa. However, Iburu is taller than fonio, but has smaller grain than fonio. This makes harvesting the grains very labor-intensive. Iburu is mainly grown in the Middle Belt of central Nigeria, as well as in Zinder, Niger.

Callichilia barteri grows as a shrub up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) tall. Its fragrant flowers feature a white corolla. Fruit is yellow to orange with paired follicles, each up to 5 centimetres (2.0 in) long. Habitat is in forests. Local medicinal uses include as a treatment for gonorrhoea and as an anthelmintic and childhood laxative. C. barteri is found in Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Pierreodendron kerstingii is a species of tree in the family Simaroubaceae. It is endemic to West Africa and found in Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and Benin. It is sometimes considered synonym of Pierreodendron africanum, which would then be a widespread species distributed south to Angola and east to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Pleioceras barteri grows as a shrub, liana or small tree up to 4 metres (13 ft) tall. Its flowers feature dark red or violet corolla lobes with yellow apex. Its habitat is forests, bush or open ground in coastal areas from sea level to 500 metres (1,600 ft) altitude. Local traditional medicinal uses include as an emmenagogue, abortifacient and also in the treatment of rheumatism and malaria. Pleioceras barteri is native to tropical West Africa and Cameroon.

Dennettia is a monotypic genus (i.e. a genus containing a single species) of plants in the custard apple family Annonaceae. The sole included species is Dennettia tripetala, a shrub or tree native to western and west-central tropical Africa, including Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Vincetoxicum cameroonicum is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae, native from Benin to Uganda in tropical Africa. It was first described by N. E. Brown in 1895 as Tylophora cameroonica.

Griffonia simplicifolia (syn. Bandeiraea simplicifolia Benth.) is a woody climbing shrub native to West Africa and Central Africa. It grows to about 3 m, and bears greenish flowers followed by black pods.

Oncocalamus is a monoecious genus of flowering plants in the palm family found in western Africa. The genus is the lone member of the Oncocalaminae; once placed with the vegetatively similar Eremospatha and Laccosperma in the Ancistrophyllinae, it is now isolated based on their unusual flowers and arrangement. Such a placement argues for a long and complex evolutionary process in the Calamoideae with heavy extinction rates. The Greek genus name combines "horn" and "capsule".

Ancistrocarpus is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Malvaceae. Its native range is Nigeria to Western Central Tropical Africa. Species: Ancistrocarpus bequaertii De Wild. Ancistrocarpus comperei R.Wilczek Ancistrocarpus densispinosus Oliv.

Mischogyne elliotiana is a species of plant in the Annonaceae family. It is native to Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Zaire. Adolf Engler and Ludwig Diels, the German botanists who first formally described the species using the basionym Uvaria elliotiana, named it after George Scott-Elliot the botanist who collected the specimen they examined.

Neostenanthera myristicifolia is a species of plant in the family Annonaceae. It is native to Benin, Cameroon, The Central African Republic, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, and The Republic of the Congo.

Excoecaria grahamii is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae. It was described in 1906. It is native to western tropical Africa.

Cyperus congensis is a species of sedge that is endemic to parts of western and central Africa. The species was first formally described by the botanist Charles Baron Clarke in 1896.

Maesobotrya barteri var. sparsiflora is a variety of flowering plant belonging to the family Phyllanthaceae, or by some authors classified in Euphorbiaceae sensu lato, native to Côte d'Ivoire. Its fruits are edible and known as "apotrewa".

Synsepalum dulcificum is a plant in the Sapotaceae family, native to tropical Africa. It is known for its berry that, when eaten, causes sour foods (such as lemons and limes) subsequently consumed to taste sweet. Common names for this species and its berry include miracle fruit, miracle berry, miraculous berry, sweet berry, and in West Africa, where the species originates, àgbáyun (in Yoruba), taami, asaa, and ledidi. The berry itself has a low sugar content and a mildly sweet tang. It contains a glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin. When the fleshy

Pseudovigna is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. It includes three species of trailing or climbing perennial herbs native to tropical Africa, in Sierra Leone and Ghana to Nigeria in West Africa, and Kenya to Mozambique and Zimbabwe in east Africa. It belongs to subfamily Faboideae.

Dracaena mannii Baker or small-leaved dragon tree, also called Kalala Kabwe, is a small to medium-sized tree, though recorded up to 35 m tall with stem to 2 m in diameter (second only to Dracaena draco within the genus) in Cameroon and Gabon. It occurs from Senegal to Angola along the African west coast, is widespread in tropical Africa and is found along the African east coast from Kenya to Kosi Bay in northern KwaZulu-Natal. It prefers lowland, submontane and montane forests which are either moist and evergreen, swampy or on coastal dunes. It is also found along forest edges, in clearings

Barteria fistulosa is a species of tree in the family Passifloraceae, native to tropical Central Africa. The tree has an association with an aggressive species of ant with a very painful sting, which lives in its hollow branches and twigs, and gives rise to its common name of "ant tree".

Stachyanthus is a genus of plants in the family Icacinaceae. It has about four species.

Amorphophallus dracontioides or the Dragons Football is a species of plant in the genus Amorphophallus ranging from Ghana to Nigeria.