PRODUCTS AT THE ROYAL GARDENS, KEW. 405 
ficient for a botanical determination. He replied to me, on April 
10, from Lagos, as follows :—“ I am glad to find I have sharpened 
your appetite as to the indigo. The country abounds with it; 
but as the young shoots are the parts from which the dye is 
made, you can realize the difficulty of securing flower and fruit. 
I don't despair, however . . . This tree might be largely deve- 
loped here. It is a alter and must be leguminous. The 
Yoruba for the tree is ‘Elu. ” 
I placed Captain Moloney’s material, such as it was, in the 
hands of my colleague, Professor Oliver, who unites to a know- 
ledge of the affinities of plants, which has become almost an 
instinct, an acquaintance with the contents of the vast Kew 
Herbarium in which it is safe to say that no human being will 
ever surpass him. He speedily drew my attention to a specimen 
(8360), bróught back from the Niger expedition by Barter in 
1859. It is accompanied by a manuscript note, which I tran- 
scribe :— 
* [Indigo of the Yoruba country. Leguminous shrub oftwining 
habit and large growth. Flowers in loose panicles, at first pink, 
changing to a faded blue. Common near rivers; plantations of 
several hundred acres of this are about Abbeokuta. In culti- 
vation the plant is kept about 7 or 8 feet high; long shoots are — 
eut close, and it becomes short and spurred and bushy like Wis- 
taria sinensis when similarly treated. The leaves are gathered 
young (as seen in specimen), merely powdered in a mortar into 
a black pasty state, made into balls the size of double fists, and 
dried for the markets. In dyeing, one ball to & gallon of water 
is used ; the cloth allowed to remain 4 days. The dye is fixed 
with potash; a fine deep blue is produced, very permanent." 
In a later communication (April 23) from Captain Moloney 
I received a supply of fruit of the plant with the following 
note:—* I send you some seed of the Yoruba indigo. lt is a 
leguminosa, as I had imagined. I am promised flowers later, but 
I doubt, as I now get fruits, whether flowers will this year be 
forthcoming.” 
These fruits, Prof. Oliver was so good as to point out to 
me, were identical with those of a plant collected on the Old 
Calabar river by Gustav Mann (2280). Of this the Kew Her- 
barium does not possess the flowering state; but Mr. Bentham 
has conjecturally referred the species to Lonchocarpus; and it 
is probable that it may turn out to be closely allied to Z. cyanes- 
LINN. JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XX. 2K 
