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tAliM OF flMBtJCTOO. 163 



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me waa the description given in VogeFs letter, in which it is 

 stated that the fruit is from 8-9 inches long and from 6-7 in 

 diameter, weighs about four or five pounds, has an oval shape, and 

 a fibrous husk enclosing three seeds ; that the trunk is, unlike that 

 of the Doom-palm, undivided, and the leaves fen-shaped, characters 

 which agreed with no other genus than Borasms ; and on tummg 

 to Martins* great work, I find the palm described as Boraasm? 

 -^thiopnm, Mart. 



It was necessary to show the way and the means by which I 

 have arrived at the identification of the Palm of Timbuctoo with 

 Borassus ? JEthiopvmy Mart., in order to gain the assent of bota- 

 pists to it, and I will now proceed to condense and connect all the 

 mformation I have collected, that we may see the sum total of 

 what is known about this palm. Like Adansonia digifata, Hy- 

 phwne TJiehaica^ Kigelia pinnata^ and many other plants, the 

 Borasstis ? jEthiopvm is spread from the eastern to the western 

 shores of Africa, and has, by some, been thought to extend as far 

 as the Cape de Verd Islands ; but Dr. Bolle, from personal obser- 

 vation, assures me that the Borasstis occurring on that group in 

 isolated specimens is the old B. Jlahelliformisy Linn., as correctly 

 stated by J. A. Schmidt in his Contributions to that flora ^Bei- 

 *rage zur Flora der Cap-Verdischen Insek, Heidelberg, 1852); 

 and that it was introduced by the Portuguese from the East 

 Indies. B. ? MtUopnm has been foxmd in Nubia, on the Senegal, 

 and in the territories of the Fidaees ; Ed. Vogel observed it on the 

 I^e of Tuburi ; and Earth adds : " It is difiused over the whole 

 of Central Africa, and forms, especially ou the banks of the shallow 

 Water-courses, so numerous in that country, extensive forests ; at 

 any distance from such waters it is only foxmd in isolated speci- 

 niens, and sometimes it is met with in company of the Date- and 

 the Doom-palm. It is the most characteristic tree, not only in 

 the Musgoo-country {%. e. the fertile, slightly elevated plains be- 

 tween the Shary and the eastern tributaries of the so-called Niger), 

 but alao in all the southern tributary provinces of Bagirmi ; in 

 ^adai^ especially on the Bat-ha, as well as in Darfur and Kordo- 

 ^n, it is abundant. On the central Niger it is scarce ; in Haussa 

 yety much isolated ; but on the Upper Niger, above Timbuctoo, 

 ^t IS again plentiful, and has there been mistaken for the Cocoa- 

 l^nt Palm. In the language of the Haussa-people it is termed 

 ' ^Jgiria,'-— in Kanuri, that of the Borauese, ' Kamelutoo,' in that 

 <>f i'ulbe, 'Dugbi,' in that of the people of Logon, 'Margum,' and 

 %^ Musgoo-language, * Uray/ " In Nubia it is known by the 



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