60 
delivered intact and the contents were found to be in an excellent 
state of preservation 
In 1867 the first consignment of Herbarium specimens from 
Dr. Kirk from Zanzibar was received and in the Kew Report for 
the year 1868 the receipt of “ a very valuable Zanzibar Herbarium”’ 
from Dr. Kirk is recorded. : 
The next record of interest is in the Report for the year 1872 :— 
* Kirk, J., H.B.M.V. Consul, Zanzibar; various new and most 
interesting plants.”’ 
In 1873 Dr. Kirk contributed Herbarium specimens from 
Zanzibar and the Somali Coast and in 1877 we find his attention 
again directed to Landolphia as a source of India rubber :— 
“The district called Mungao extends from lat. 9° 25’ to 
Delgado in lat. 10° 41’. This last year yielded £90,000 worth 
of india-rubber—an industry that has been created in the last 
two years by my representations. This year the yield will be 
more, and other places are now collecting it. Thus Kilwa and 
Mombasa will this year probably double the supply, which I 
anticipate will reach in value not less than £180,000 worth of 
india-rubber, East Africa to the south, that is from Delgado — 
Bay to the Zambesi, is producing it as well. I must try to get 
the plant introduced into India, for the quality is excellent, and 
grown in the coast jungles would be an addition to the sources 
_ of wealth.” 
Kirk’s attention to a native East African Rubber tree was — 
drawn by his seeing a native boy playing with an elastic ball, 
which he found was made of caoutchouc. He traced the plant 
from which it was obtained and so started the East African 
Rubber Trade (K.B. 1896, p. 81; Kew Report 1880) and incident- 
ally that of the West Coast. In 1882 he showed specimens of 
Landolphia and balls of rubber from East Central Africa at the 
Linnean Society. 
During the year 1879 Dr. Kirk sent to Kew three Wardian 
Cases from Zanzibar containing “ Euphorbia sp., Hypoxis villosa, 
seedling and other Landolphias, Meyenia sp., Keramanthus Kirkit, 
Musa Livingstoniana, Actiniopteris radiata, Pellaea Doniana and 
other ferns, Aroideae, Chlorophytum macrophyllum, Angraecum 
sp., and other orchids; seeds of Landolphia.”’ 
In 1880 his activities and interests were again directed towards 
distributing the Copal tree, Trachylobium Hornemannianum, see 
of which he had sent to Natal some five years earlier. He was 
also interested in the Mpafu Tree of-Tropical Africa (Canarium 
Schweinfurthii, Engl.), and on p. 50 of the Report for 1880 some 
interesting particulars are given about this tree 
On a short trip up the Somali Coast he gathered some very 
peculiar and interesting types of plants. But for his energy, 
East Africa would have been poorly represented in the pages 
of the first three volumes of the Flora of Tropical Africa, a 
large number of new species having been described from his 
material, whilst over a hundred commemorate his name either 
as Kirkit or Kirkiana, including the genus Kirkia, Oliver 
