188 COL. GRANT—BOTANY ОЕ THE 5РЕКЕ AND GRANT EXPEDITION. 
north of Gandokoro. It generally branches three times. Found in flower during April 
in Egypt, where it is called the “ doom ;" it was in fruit also during the same month. 
When growing singly the male tree is remarkably handsome, shaggy, with its stem 
and branches hidden by green and withered leaves, which droop almost to the ground, 
whereas the female tree is bare of. leaves except at the extremities of the branches, where 
the pendent fruit, strung like onions to а rope, appear under the graceful hanging 
leaves. Donkeys eat the outer part of the fruit, which tastes like dry gingerbread. At 
the river Atbara, 173° N. lat., we saw rope of a coarse description being made with its 
‚ fronds. The trunk is used as beams and posts.—J. A. G. 
5. HyPHÆNE, nov. sp. This unbranched Palm was only found at Wadi Soofur, 
213° N. lat., on the 9th May, 1863, when it was in ripe fruit. One of our men, Manua, 
had seen it at Mambweh, near Feepa, south of Lake Tanganyika, where there are 
numerous streams. Не called it the “ mizanza ? Palm. A line of these trees was 
growing in the above locality, a valley of sand surrounded by rocky cliffs. The leaf curves 
down like those of H. thebaica, but is more collapsed. The inedible fruit is about the 
dimensions of a walnut, but differs in being a perfect ellipse, with a shining, thin, deep- 
purple skin, which is more fragile than that of the edible chestnut. This skin comes off 
readily ; under it there is a stringy, dry, yellow, tasteless substance. Immense clusters ` 
of fruit grow between the green and the withered leaves. The male organ differs little 
from that of H. thebaica, and is longer. The tree does not attain the height of Borassus 
æthiopicus. The wood would answer for beams ; and we saw our camel-men make shackles 
for their camels of its leaves, considering them softer for the feet, after wetting and twist- 
ing, than those of the other Hyphene. Seed deposited at Kew.—J. A. G. 
