The main harvest period of nuts extends from October to December, but some nuts may be available throughout the year. The pod is harvested before the nuts are ripe. The follicle is split and the three to six nuts are removed, fermented in heaps for 5 days, washed clean, and stored. They will keep for several months. The fetid kola flowers are in several- to many flowered determinate panicles.
Some trees produce only male flowers, but some hermaphrodite flowers are usually on every tree.
The male flower is subspherical, the hermaphrodite one is more oval. The hermaphrodite flower produces pollen that will germinate on a proper agar solution but will not fertilize a stigma, so the flower is basically nonfunctional, and should be considered as a pistillate one. The hermaphrodite flower opens between 4 and 8 a.m. and is apparently receptive only one day, as the majority wither and drop on the second to the fourth day. Naturally, all male flowers shed. When the flower opens, the anthers dehisce a sticky pollen, which largely remains on the anthers.