ELAEIS GUINEENSIS Jacq. (ARECACEAE[PALMAE]) — African Oil Palm

This chapter provides information on the uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecology, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of African Oil Palm. African Oil Palm is monoecious and cross-pollinated, and individual palms are very heterozygous. Two kinds of oil are obtained from this palm, palm oil and palm kernel oil. Palm oil is extracted from the fleshy mesocarp of the fruit, which contains 45 to 55% oil which varies from light-yellow to orange-red in color, and melts from 25° to 50°C. Palm kernel oil is extracted from the kernel of endosperm, and contains about 50% oil. Infertile palms show strong vegetative growth, but of little commercial value; however it has now become of greatest importance in breeding commercial palms. The center of origin of the oil palm is in the tropical rain forest region of West Africa in a region about 200 to 300 km wide along the coastal belt from Liberia to Angola.