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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-575
Kola Nut
Cola acuminata
Kola is a tropical evergreen tree in the cacao family, grown for a caffeine-rich seed that is chewed whole as a stimulant, ground into a coffee substitute, or used to flavour soft drinks, ice cream and confectionery. The same seed rates higher for medicine than for food - as a digestive tonic and traditional remedy for migraine, dysentery and the vomiting of fever - and chewing it makes food eaten afterward taste sweeter. It is strictly a wet lowland tropical tree: a minimum below about 13 C stops it cold, and it needs steady year-round warmth and rain rather than a distinct dry season. It is naturally an understorey tree that tolerates shade, but a plantation grown in the open yields more, and a tree does not bear its first nuts until 12 to 15 years old.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 10–12
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 5.5–7
- Plant type
- Evergreen Tree
- Mature height
- 39.4–65.6 ft
- Mature spread
- 65.6 ft
- Plant spacing
- 16.4–32.8 ft
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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