260 EXPEDITION UP THE KWORA. 



exclusively. Many fine timber-trees, rising to the height of 150 to 206 

 feet, are visible from the glimpses obtained of the forest. 



Huge white trunks of a tree called " Ked-wood " are clearly percep- 

 tible on the sides of the mountains from Clarence, a distance of seven 

 or eight miles. This wood is worked up for the internal fittings of the 

 houses ; it is rather hard, fine-grained, -of a light red colour, polishes 

 easily. Bombax attains a great size : its enormous buttresses, running 

 half up the trunk, have a singular appearance. The African Oak (Old- 

 Jieldia Africana, Hook.) is said to grow here, and I have procured digitate 

 leaves of a large tree, but have no further evidence of identifying it 

 as that plant. The people undertake to find any tree when a name is 

 given them, but no reliance is to be placed in them. Two fine trees 

 are conspicuous in the forest by their elegant foliage, one with large 

 peltate leaves, male inflorescence enclosed in spathaceous bracts, female 

 on an ovate flattened receptacle, eventually becoming a yellow fleshy 

 fruit, which is sometimes eaten: specimens dried and in spirits are 

 sent. The other, in habit resembling a huge Theophrasta, with fine 

 pinnated spiny leaves ; flower or fruit not seen. 



I will not say much on the specimens sent from here ; most of the 

 species are new to me, and I cannot fail to observe a great change from 

 the species of Sierra Leone. The following plants are more or less 

 characteristic of the vegetation near Clarence : 



Cocculus macrantkus, its large, hairy, orange-coloured fruit is very 



rts 



m cultivated ground; Abutilon sp., with orange-coloured flowers; a 

 large, shrubby Hibiscus, with yellow flowers, grows close to high-water 

 mark, but only observed on the shore ; Sterculia Cola is not an uncom- 

 mon tree : I have sent clusters of fruit of this, pod and flowers preserved 

 in acid : the trees never attain a large size, spread much, branching not 

 unlike an English Apple-tree; Glyphia r/rewioides, common; Melia 

 Azedarach, an introduced plant ; the species of Carapa which I sent 

 from Sierra Leone I have not seen growing here, although the nuts 

 are plentifully washed ashore ; the Orange and Lime have escaped to 

 the woods, and now produce fruit abundantly in partially cleared places ; 

 a species of Glycosmis, with oblong, drupaceous fruit, is common ; many 

 species of Cissus abound in the deep shade of the forest, and produce 

 clusters of tempting-looking fruit, some of which weigh from eight to 

 twelve pounds, and would do credit to a grower of Hamburg grapes: 



