152 DR. SEEMANN ON THE 



On the Palm of Timbuctoo. By Bertiiold Seemann, Esq., Ph.D., 



E.L.S. &c. 

 [Read November 18th, 1856.] 

 Until lately, all our knowledge of Timbuctoo was very unsatis- 

 factory. A mysterious haze was closely associated with the very 

 name of that place, opening a field for the exercise of the imagi- 

 native faculties, the more unbounded as the veracity of those who 

 had visited and described Timbuctoo was very much doubted ; the 

 doubts arising chiefly from the descriptions given, which in order 

 to find general credence were either too vague, or when more 

 positive, too much opposed to well-ascertained facts. Thus, for 

 instance, it was stated that the Cocoa-nut Palm grew there ; but as 

 that tree, though found, according to J. D. Hooker, as far inland 

 as Patna in Bengal, and, according to Humboldt and Bonpland 

 in New Granada, nearly a hundred leagues up the River Mag- 

 dalena, is essentially a littoral plant, which refuses to grow in many 

 countries any distance from the sea, the correctness of the state- 

 ment was called in question, and the Palm of Timbuctoo remained 

 until this day a botanical enigma. 



In September 1853, Dr. Henry Barth succeeded in reaching 

 Timbuctoo, and during a stay of several months obtained an intimate 

 knowledge of the place and its productions. On his return to 

 Europe, I asked that enterprising explorer whether the Palm 

 alluded to was actually the Cocoa-nut tree. He replied in the 

 negative, and at the same time informed me that it was the same 

 which our mutual friend Edward Vogel had met with on the 

 Lake of Tuburi, and described in his letter to Petermann, dated 

 Kuka, July 13, 1854 (Bonplandia, vol. iii. p. 13). In that letter, 

 Dr. Vogel mentions that he takes the Palm described by him to 

 be the same as that discovered in Sennar by Bussegger's Expe- 

 dition. Now, in submitting, during my stay at Vienna, all my 

 evidence, including a letter received from Dr. H. Barth, to my 

 friend M. Theodore Kotschy, the botanist of Bussegger's Ex- 

 pedition, he agreed with me that Vogel was right in his conclu- 

 sion, and that the whole of Barth' s description corresponded with 

 what he knew of the Palm. Having thus ascertained that the 

 information I had collected referred to one and the same plant, 

 the next step was to find out the genus to which it could belong. 

 It must be borne in mind that I had no specimens at my disposal ; 

 Vogel, it is true, had sent a few fruits, but the box containing 

 them has not come to hand*, — and the chief thing I had to guide 



* Since this paper was read the box has arrived at Kew, and the fruits prove 

 to be those of Bonassus ? Mthio'pum^ Mart. 



