1854.] Linnean Society. 275 



so many contradictory statements regarding their botanical name ; 

 indeed to such a degree do the accounts of travellers vary, that one 

 calls them beans, another rice, while again a third party pronounces 

 them to be millet. The " Garfuli mosri," so often mentioned by 

 African travellers, is the Indian corn {Zea Mays), the spikes of which 

 are gathered before they are quite ripe ; and in that state they are 

 toasted and eaten. 



" To convey a notion of the poor return agriculture yields in this 

 part of the world, I will state that the inhabitants surround each 

 spike of the Gosub and Garfuli abiad with a neatly-made basket, in 

 order to prevent the wild pigeons from picking the seeds. 



" Among the few trees growing here, the finest is a Cornus, called 

 Kiirno by the Arabs ; it attains a height of 80 feet, and a diameter 

 of about 3 feet ; the country about Sudan and Bornu is, I am in- 

 formed, its true native land, and the 26th degree of north latitude 

 appears to be its most northern range. A description, and additional 

 information concerning this tree, will be found with the flowering 

 specimens in my herbarium. The Gum Acacia will also be found in 

 my collection ; it enlivens and adorns the most stony sides of the 

 valleys of the Wadi Scherzi and Cherbi. The specimen of the gum 

 is very small ; but there was some difficulty in procuring more, as 

 all the trees growing near the road are generally well searched by 

 the Arabs, who collect the gum as an article of food for themselves. 

 I could never find the eating of gum-arabic much to my taste. Most 

 of this article is brought by the Tuariks, and seems to grow be- 

 tween Dgerma and Ghat. 



" According to Sir "W. Hooker, in the Admiralty ' Manual of Scien- 

 tific Inquiry' of 1851, the plant producing the senna of commerce is 

 still unknown botanically. I collected it in Wadi Cherbi, near 

 Dgerma, west of Mourzouk, where it grew wild under date palms ; 

 it is found in enormous masses in Ahir, to the south of this place ; 

 but it is now-a-days gathered in very small quantities, as senna- 

 leaves, on account of their trifling value (half- a- crown the cwt.), 

 are not sufficiently remunerative to bear the cost of the transport, 

 and the 24 per cent, transit duty levied upon them here. I have 

 also sent seeds of the Sudan cotton-plant, in case I should not go 

 far enough west to collect them in their native country. In the 

 materia medica of the Arabs, Peganum Harmala, vernacularly termed 

 Harmel, occupies a prominent place. It is celebrated as a preventa- 

 tive against ophthalmia. For that purpose the immature seed-vessels 

 are recommended ; every Arab swallows in the spring of the year 

 about a dozen of them, fancying that in doing so he will be exempt 



