DESIDERATA, XV 
varieties of Habzelia, whose seeds were also known as Guinea 
Grains or Ethiopian Pepper, and of Cubeba, supplying, accord- 
ing to Thonning, the Ashantee Pepper. To such points we 
would particularly direct the attention of the resident Natu- 
ralist, and in their case more than in any other, we look for 
personal information. The- reports of the natives, as received 
through Europeans, are scarcely ever to be trusted, and it 
happens but too frequently that even the local commercial 
men who deal in them, either through ignorance or from 
mistaken views of interest, mislead scientific men in their 
replies to such inquiries. 
Our hest general information on this as on all other import- 
ant points of the Botany of West Tropical Africa, is contained 
in Brown’s already quoted “Appendix.” A few additional 
notes on edible fruits of Sierra Leone are contained in a paper 
by Afzelius, in “Sierra Leone Report, 1794," and another of 
the late Mr. Sabine, in the fifth volume of the “ Transactions 
of the Horticultural Society of London ;” and many valuable 
memoranda are dispersed through Schumacher and Thonning’s 
description of Isert and Thonning’s Guinea plants, in the fourth 
volume of the “ Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences 
of Copenhagen.” This account, divided between two parts of 
those Transactions, has also been separately published under the 
title of “ Beskrivelse af Guineiske Planter,’ and has been 
always quoted in the following Flora, with the paging of this 
separate edition, the only one that we are in possession of. 
Dr. Vogel’s collection, though full of memoranda on botanical 
points, which have materially assisted in the determination and 
description of the specimens, contains but little information on 
points of economical and practical botany. He was, indeed, for 
too short a time in the country to enable him to collect authentic 
data, and he well knew that mere hearsay reports from ignorant 
natives were of little or no value. The extent and comparative 
excellence of his collection show that neither zeal nor ability ` 
were wanting, so long as his health was spared, in rendering it 
as botanically serviceable as possible. 
G. B. 
