# Kola nut

*Kola, cola, gurru or guru nut, bissy nut; *Kola vera* of Grieve; *Sterculia acuminata* P. Beauv.; *Cola nitida* (Vent.) Schott & Endl. and *Cola acuminata* (P. Beauv.) Schott & Endl.; in pharmacy *Colae semen**

**Known today as.** The dried cotyledons of the seeds of the kola trees of western Africa, of the family Malvaceae (in the older books Sterculiaceae), freed from their purplish seed coat. Grieve describes a tree about forty feet high with yellow flowers spotted with purple; the seed, nearly white when fresh, turns reddish-brown on drying and loses much of its astringency. King’s Dispensatory places the tree between Sierra Leone and the Congo and Lower Guinea, carried by the slave traders to Jamaica. The European Medicines Agency’s assessment report takes the drug to contain at least 1.5 per cent of methylxanthines, chiefly caffeine.

Kind: Plant

> **Caution.** Not for people with stomach or duodenal ulcers, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat or other heart disorders, or an overactive thyroid; not under eighteen, nor in pregnancy or breast-feeding, nor at bedtime, since it may disturb sleep. Those taking MAO inhibitors should use it with caution; like other caffeine preparations it weakens sedatives and increases the side effects of sympathomimetic drugs.

## What was it used for?

A stimulant to stay hunger and sustain strength. King’s records that the peoples of the region chewed kola “to allay hunger, prevent thirst, promote digestion, and sustain strength,” and Grieve that a small piece was chewed before each meal and was thought even to make putrid water palatable. In European medicine its properties were, in Grieve’s words, “the same as caffeine, modified only by the astringents present.”

## What does modern science say?

The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts the seed as a traditional herbal medicine, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for symptoms of temporary fatigue and a sensation of weakness (monograph of 2011). Its assessment report found that clinical trials supporting its uses “are lacking,” and judged the traditional use plausible from its caffeine content, the maximum daily dose amounting to at least 135 mg of caffeine.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **caffeine**: chief of the methylxanthines, which make up at least 1.5 per cent

**Mechanism.** The European agency judged the traditional use plausible from its caffeine content.

**Standing.** European Union herbal monograph (2011): traditional use, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for temporary fatigue and a sensation of weakness.

## What lore surrounds it?

It also figured, King’s continues, “in courtship and marriage, compacts of friendship, as a mark of hospitality, and was put into the graves of the dead to nourish them on their long journey.” Grieve warns of a false kola, the male kola of *Garcinia kola*, which contains no caffeine.

## What did the older authorities say?

**King’s American Dispensatory (1898).** Leo Africanus, in the sixteenth century, referred to the tree as the Gora or Guru and wrote of its bitter nut; Clusius described and illustrated the seeds in 1591, and J. Bauhin first noted its use by the natives in fevers. Kola figured in many ceremonies, social, political, and religious: “It was used as a declaration of war (red nut), and as a symbol of peace (white nut).”

## Sources

- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Kola Nuts.” As published on botanical.com.
- Felter, H. W., & Lloyd, J. U. (1898). *King’s American Dispensatory*, vol. 2, “Kola.” Internet Archive, kingsamericandis02kinguoft.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Colae semen (Cola)*. EMA/HMPC/722367/2010, 22 November 2011.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Colae semen*. EMA/HMPC/722365/2010, 22 November 2011.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Colae semen (Cola)*. EMA/HMPC/722367/2010, 22 November 2011.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Colae semen*. EMA/HMPC/722365/2010, 22 November 2011.

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*Kola nut.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-17. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/kola-nut

Historical description, not medical advice.