Pterocarpus erinaceus (Fabaceae) is a multipurpose tree species of Sahelian and Sudanian zones in Africa. Tough the species has been actively studied, the lack of coordination and orientation in these studies lead to some biases in the knowledge needed for the better management and valorization of this species. To overcome this insufficiency, scientific publications available on the species were collected from Google scholar, Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) and Science direct portals.

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... ter filtering the generalist publications identified, 127 publications produced between 1974 and 2019 were classified according to nine previously identified themes. The results from 49 research institutions from 19 countries show that the pharmacological properties, the characteristics of the stands of P. erinaceus and the socioeconomic role are the most discussed themes with respectively 41.7 %, 29.1 % and 16.5 % of publications, while those relating to the propagation of the species, natural dissemination and the role of food are rarely addressed with respective frequencies of 6.3 %, 4.7 % and 3.9 %. These results also indicate that 9 West Africa countries published more than 84.2 % of the publications when 3.2 % were published by 2 countries from Central Africa and 12.6 % for 8 European countries. The analysis shows that more studies are needed to improve knowledge about techniques of the propagation of the species for silviculture and factors that influence the natural dissemination of the species in its natural habitat.