River koko

Inga vera, commonly known as guamo, pois doux or river koa, is a fast-growing, medium-sized evergreen tree of the Fabaceae (Mimosoideae) native to the Neotropics from southern Mexico and the Caribbean through Central America and into much of tropical South America east of the Andes. It typically reaches 8-20 m in height with a broad, spreading, often umbrella-shaped crown and smooth, greyish-brown bark, and is most commonly found along rivers and streams, in seasonally flooded forests and as a shade tree in coffee and cacao plantations. The pinnate leaves have 3-6 pairs of opposite, elliptic-oblong leaflets 5-15 cm long, with a conspicuous winged or expanded rachis and small disc-like nectaries between each pair of leaflets that attract ants. White, fragrant flowers with long, showy, brush-like exserted stamens are massed into dense globose or cylindrical inflorescences. The fruit is a large, indehiscent, cylindrical or slightly twisted, velvety green to brown pod 10-30 cm long, containing several dark seeds embedded in a soft, sweet, white, edible cotton-like pulp from which the tree's common name 'ice-cream bean' derives.