OF RUBtACE^ IN TUOPICAL ArEICA. 261 



a very fine grain, very compact, heavy, and of extraordinary 

 strength ; and it is perhaps on account of the latter quality that 

 the Xegroes attribute to it the preventive virtue referred to. 

 It rarely exceeds 7 or, at the most, 9 feet in height ; its trunk, 

 however, comes up to 1-^-2 feet in circumference, offering thus 

 ) suflBcient diameter to render this precious wood useful for all 



works of turnery, such as in Europe are usually made with box- 

 wood. Dr. Welwitsch further explains that this plant is remark- 

 V able for the large number of lobes into which the various parts of 



the flower are divided; and on this account he proposed the ge- 

 neric name Decameria ; the specific name Jovis-tonantis he selected 

 m allusion to the supposed influence in time of thunder. 



Mungo Park, in his * Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa,' 

 has the following passage: — " On the first attack of a fever, when 

 the patient complains of a cold, he is frequently placed in a sort of 

 vapour-bath. This is done by spreading branches of the Nauclea 

 orientalis upon hot wood embers, and laying the patient upon 

 them wrapped up in a large cotton cloth. Water is then sprinkled 

 I upon the branches, which, descending to the hot embers, soon 



^ covers the patient with a cloud of vapour, in which he is allowed 



to remain until the embers are almost extinguished. This 

 practice comm.only produces a profuse perspiration, and wonder- 

 fully relieves the sufferer." 



Nauclea orientalis is a name which has been long known to 

 science as an East-Indian plant, but which unfortunately had, 

 even by Mungo Park's time, been employed to designate two 

 different species which now are placed in two different genera, 

 neither of which is Nauclea, though both belong to the tribe 

 Naucleese. It is therefore uncertain what species or genus Mungo 

 Park took his plant to be ; but it is nearly certain that he was 

 treating of either Sarcocephalus esculentus or Mitragyne africana : 

 and inasmuch as I have seen a specimen of the former species 

 collected by Mungo Park and now in the department of botany 

 at the British Museum, and as I have seen no such specimen of 

 the latter species, I conclude that it is most likely that Sarcoce- 

 plalm esculentus afforded the febrifuge spoken of by Mungo Park. 

 Tlie medicinal qualities of this same species are alluded to by T. 

 Winterbottom in his ^Account of the Native Africans in the 

 Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone,* vol. ii. p. 45, under the name of 



Nauclea samhucina. 



t 



LINX. JOURX. BOTANT, TOL. XTI. 



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