Tab. 6359. 

 ACOKANTHERA spectabilis. 



Native of South Africa. 



Nat. Ord. Apocyne^i. — Tribe Carisse^e. 

 Genus Acokanthera, Donj (Benth. et HooJc.f. Gen. Plant, vol. ii. p. 896.) 



Acokanthera spectabilis ; foliis breviter petiolatis oblongo-v. elliptico-lanceolatis 

 acutis v. acuminatis integerrimis coriaceis nervis indistmctis, racemis 

 axillaribus et subtermiiialibus multifloris, calycis lobis ovato-lanceolatis 

 subacutis pilosulis, corollae tubo $-pollicari, lobis ovato-lanceolatis subacute. 



A. spectabilis, Benth. in Gen, Plant, vol. ii. p. 696. 



Toxicophlwa spectabilis, Sonder in Linnma, vol. xxiii. p. 79 ; Walp. Ann. vol. 

 iii. p. 32 ; Masters in Gard. Chron. 1872, p. 363 cum Ic. Xylog. f. 122. 



The genus Acokanthera was founded by G. Don in the 

 1 Gardeners' Dictionary' (vol. iv. p. 485) on Thunberg's 

 Oestrum venenatum (and other South African plants having no 

 relation thereto), a native of Western South Africa. Sub- 

 sequently, Harvey, overlooking Don's genus, established 

 Toxicophlwa on the same Oestrum venenatum, and his name is 

 taken up by A. De Candolle in the Prodromus, and has conse- 

 quently been current for that plant ever since ; subsequently, 

 a congener was found in Abyssinia, the Carissa Schimpcn, 

 A.D.C. (0. Mepte, Hochst., and Strychnos abyssinica, Hochst,), 

 and finally, the present plant was sent from South East 

 Africa, and first published as Toxicophlwa spectabilis by Sonder. 

 The three known species are probably all of them very 

 poisonous. A. venenata {Toxicophlwa Thunbergii), Harvey, 

 is the " Gift-boom," or poison-tree of the Dutch and English 

 colonists. According to Thunberg, a decoction of the bark 

 reduced to a jelly was used by the Aborigines for poisoning 

 their arrows ; and of the A. spectabilis, Mrs. Barber writes that 

 the seeds are intensely bitter, and the whole plant considered 

 by the natives to be a deadly poisonous one. The genus is, 

 as Mr. Dyer has remarked (Gard. Chron. l.c), too closely 



MAY lsx, 1878. 



