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The sausage shape of the fruit of the Kigelia tree may provoke sniggers among all who gaze upon it, but its magical, medicinal properties are no laughing matter. Anti-ageing and maybe even anti-cancer, the demand for this African fruit’s healing powers is set to rise, says the African Plant Hunter Gus LeBreton

When I was a child, I wanted to be an adventurer and explorer. I wanted to climb mountains, kayak rivers, sail across oceans and discover ancient cities in far-off lands. So when in my early forties I became the co-founder of an anti-ageing skincare brand, I wondered how my life had taken such a different turn. It seemed a disappointingly far cry from my childhood dreams.

Yet, in a weird kind of way, it wasn’t. Sure, I hadn’t stumbled upon a new continent, but this skincare range was based on a discovery of a different kind. It was probably one of the most profound discoveries of my life; one that should have made me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. Because, almost accidentally, I had stumbled across the elixir of youth – a magical potion to keep us all looking and feeling eternally young. Given that this is the goal of every single person in the global multi-billion-dollar cosmetics industry, you’d think I’d have had it made. But life has its own way of working things out, and it was not my destiny to become a skincare magnate. But I learned a lot along the way, and that’s what really counts, right?

When you open a Kigelia fruit, they are surprisingly disappointing inside: they’re hard to cut and bitter to taste. But my goodness, those fruit pack a potent medicinal punch

The secret to eternal youth, as I saw it, lay hidden within the remarkable but strange-looking fruit of the African sausage tree, Kigelia africana. Most of us know the tree; its fruit – those great big dangling phalli – are hard to miss. Extracts from these have long been used to help heal sun-damaged skin, and some people swear that it is an effective treatment for skin cancer. These fruit, despite their unappealing name and propensity to provoke sniggers in all who gaze upon them, contain exceptional healing properties that can help us to look a lot younger for a lot longer. This, I thought, needed to be shared with the rest of the world – for the good of humanity, obviously.

The sausage tree can be found all over Africa, thriving especially well in riverine areas, as well as in open woodland and savannah regions. Any visitor to Mana Pools or Gonarezhou in Zimbabwe will at some point have taken refuge in the shade of one of these magnificent trees. The trees produce large, spectacular dark maroon flowers which attract hordes of birds, insects, bats and butterflies; despite this decorative display, it’s the fruit that makes it stand out. Long and pendulous, the Kigelia fruit can weigh up to seven kilograms, hanging down from the tree on stalks that look so fragile they deter passers-by from standing directly beneath them.

rprisingly disappointing inside. There is no brightly coloured, sugary pulp to eat, no rich, sticky juice to drink. It’s just a dull-looking pithy fibre, hard to cut and bitter to taste. But my goodness, those fruit pack a potent medicinal punch.

Humans across Africa have discovered an astonishing variety of uses for these plant-y sausages, laden as they are with biologically active phytochemicals. The powdered mature fruit are used as a topical antibacterial and anti-fungal treatment to heal wounds and cure ulcers and abscesses. The green fruit are thinly sliced and topically applied as a poultice for rheumatism, syphilis, haemorrhoids and snakebite. Mature whole fruit are used in a variety of weird and wonderful ways to enlarge male sexual organs; the sliced fruit are placed on the chests of adolescent girls to help stimulate the growth of firm and forward-pointing breasts. Tapeworm, constipation, diarrhoea and gynaecological disorders can all be treated in one way or another by the fruit. In Kenya they are even used as a bittering agent in the production of beer.

All across Africa, for as long as we have had records, people have used Kigelia to eliminate blemishes, reduce wrinkles and treat skin ailments – so its use in skincare has attracted commercial interest

However, it is the traditional use of Kigelia fruit in skincare that has attracted commercial interest. All across Africa, for as long as we have had records, people have used it to eliminate blemishes, reduce wrinkles and treat skin ailments. When the first Europeans appeared in Africa, they found that topical applications of the fruit extract were excellent relief for sunburned skin. The big breakthrough allegedly occurred when a white South African farmer, suffering from skin cancer as a result of too much sun, was offered a tincture of Kigelia fruit by one of his employees and was amazed to find it completely cured his skin cancer. The farmer shared the story of his recovery with his friends, and Kigelia extract became the preferred after-sun treatment for generations of farmers – a position it still holds today.

Research at King’s College London shows Kigelia to have high levels of cytotoxic activity against melanoma and other cancer cell lines

I first came across Kigelia in the early Nineties when I was studying in the Zambezi Valley, looking for plants with potential for commercial development. Intrigued by this fruit and the tales of its healing properties, I discovered the pioneering work of Professor Peter Houghton, at King’s College London, who had researched the anti-cancer activity of Kigelia fruit and found it to have high levels of cytotoxic activity against melanoma and other cancer cell lines. If Kigelia could cure cancer, I figured, more people should know about it.

In the early Noughties I was able to get a sample of Kigelia accepted for a formal trial at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the world-famous research unit in the United States (US) which specialises in testing new cancer treatments. For the NCI to have accepted a sample from us here in Zimbabwe was a really big deal, and when we sent off the sample, our excitement levels were at fever pitch. Imagine our disappointment when the results came back showing insufficient levels of anti-cancer activity to warrant further investigation. It was a huge blow. I just couldn’t figure out why we had failed.

The answer came in the most unlikely form of an eccentric British herbalist who used a pendulum to analyse plants for medicinal properties. I took two samples of dried Kigelia fruit to him for testing – one old and one fresh. The herbalist analysed both and told me the old one had no anti-cancer properties, but the fresh one was full of them. I thought back to the sample I’d sent the NCI and recalled it was more than three years old at the time I’d sent it. What a frustratingly stupid mistake! (We’ve now validated the herbalist’s claim – fresh fruit is, unsurprisingly, more potent than old, and I’m hoping one day we can get a fresh sample tested by the NCI.)

Back to my skincare range. In 2008 I was approached by Janine Halsted in Harare – her father, Henry Teasdale, had been producing a Kigelia skincare product from his cosmetics factory in Bulawayo. While it was remarkably effective at treating solar keratoses and uneven pigmentation, its presentation was less than desirable. The cream was a dark, sludgy brown colour with a pungent odour, and it required an exceptionally robust constitution for anyone to apply it to their skin. But it worked. Janine and her friend Carolyn Berman had decided to try and reformulate the product so that it actually looked and smelled like a skincare product rather than a veterinary ointment for treating wounds on pigs – and they wanted my help.

I don’t recall the exact moment when Janine convinced me to quit my job and invest my life savings into this brand, but by 2010 I was the co-owner of Katavi Botanicals, a Kigelia-based skincare brand named after Katavi, my favourite park in Tanzania where the Kigelia trees form thick forests on the banks of the Ikuu river. I was on my way to anti-ageing fame and fortune. Or so I thought.

We paid an extortionate amount to a laboratory in Germany to test and validate the efficacy of the products, and then produced a stunning range, all beautifully packaged and presented. Our USP was that our products reduced “photo-ageing” – the premature ageing of skin as a result of sun damage. “Who wouldn’t want a product that slowed down the ageing process?” we thought, and off we went to the US to launch our brand on a TV shopping channel.

Gus LeBreton is a partner in Katavi Botanicals, a skincare brand built around the healing power of Kigelia

I still think that Kigelia will one day assume its rightful position as a giant in the pantheon of plant medicines

We were under the naïve impression that having a good product was all we needed for success. We were wrong. It turns out that in the cosmetics world, marketing is everything and the product is essentially irrelevant. We lacked the means for a decent marketing budget so the American public remained blissfully unaware of our brilliant product. Another lesson learned. Another fortune burned.

Katavi as a brand still exists today. We produce in South Africa and mostly sell on the local market. We have a fanatically loyal but very small following. I still think that one day, if I had a much bigger marketing budget, we could relaunch in the US. (I’m only slightly resentful that in 2013, an American housewife called Tiffany Masterson launched Drunk Elephant, an African ingredient-based skincare brand, and six years later sold it to beauty giant Shiseido for a whopping $845m. Well, OK, quite a lot resentful if I’m honest. But hey, maybe she has a cavernous lack of meaning in her life while I still potter around rural Africa in my Land Rover looking at plants, happy as a sandboy. So perhaps I came out ahead in the end.)

Today I’m involved in the production of a high-end Kigelia extract that is manufactured in the UK and sold to a number of well-known skincare brands. We all want to live longer, and demand for effective natural remedies for photo-ageing will surely rise, so I still think that Kigelia will one day assume its rightful position as a giant in the pantheon of plant medicines.

Until then I will continue to smother it on my face every day to treat my own sun-damaged skin. Every now and again I think wistfully of what I’d do with $845m, but I’d probably just fritter it away on pointless Landie accessories. So I’ll just carry on pottering. But if you catch me at a quiet moment and thrust a good beer into my hand, I’ll tell you about Kigelia’s remarkable ability to restore firmness to sagging breasts. Now that’s a business opportunity that surely deserves to be explored...

Gus LeBreton, AKA the African Plant Hunter, is
an ethnobotanist dedicated to the novel plant-derived ingredients from indigenous plants in Africa.
IG: @africanplanthunter
Visit: www.katavibeauty.com