Niger Expedition of 1858, when it was collected by the late — 
Mr. C. Barter “three miles south of Jebu on the Yoruba | 
side.” The discovery afforded the first evidence of the. 
existence of the genus in Tropical Africa. The name — 
proposed for the species by Mr. Carruthers was taken 
up by Professor Miquel and is not invalidated by the fact 
that in his original account Miquel associated with Barter’s 
specimens the leaves of another species from Natal. \ The 
species was again met with on the Upper Volta in 1865 by 
the Rev. ©. Schénfeld of the Gold Coast Basel Mission. 
Schinfeld took advantage of the re-opening of this territory 
after Sir John Glover’s campaign to revisit the Upper Volta 
and bring back with him an old full-grown tree and a>~™ 
further supply of botanical specimens which he sent to Kew 
in 1875, Further material was communicated in 1882 by 
Commander R. M. Rumsey, R.N., and in 1890 Sir A. 
Moloney sent asupply of living plants which he had secured, 
from Anum on the Upper Volta, through the co-operation of 
the Basel Mission. In 1898 more material was sent from 
the Gold Coast by Mr. W. H. Johnson; there is also at 
Kew a leaf obtained in Dahomey, 300 miles from the Cc 
by the younger Mr. Poisson. arly in 1908 Mr. J. | 
Anderson sent to Kew a number of living plants and fresh 
female cones from Labo Labo on the Voita. One of these 
cones is now figured; the male cone depicted was collected 
by Barter; the embryo and suspensors have been drawn ~ 
from a preparation by Mr. Hemsley. — 
Barter only met with the plant in one locality “in a dry 
rocky valley ” and Schénfeld, in a letter to Sir J. D. Hooker, 
speaks of it as only occurring on rocky hills “shooting out — 
of the crevices of the rocks.” The stem is described by 
Barter as hardly rising above the surface of the soil, the 
largest seen by him being 1 ft. in height and 9 in. across. 
The striking name of “Ghost Palm,” independently — 
recorded for the plant by Schinfeld, Rumsey and Moloney, — 
is explained by Schinfeld as being used to express the — 
absence of all virtues from this plant as compared with the — 
valued Oil Palm, Elaeis guineensis. Moloney, however, — 
(Forestry of West Africa, p. 215,) records, as illustrative of 
the difficulty in obtaining reliable information in matters 
of this kind, an alternative explanation which attributes 
malignant qualities to this handsome species, oe 
