104 



to Mr. C. E. Lane-Poole, at that time Conservator of Forests in 

 Sierra Leone, there is another plant, belonging to a different 

 genus of the same family, which is called the " Brimstone Tree." 

 his is Mitragyne stipulosa, 0. Eize. {Mitragyne macrophylla, 

 Hiern). Mr. Lane-Poole supplied the following information: 



" The Brimstone tree : A very large forest tree, without buttress 

 roots, growing to a height of 150 ft., and a diameter of over 

 6 ft. at the base. The bole is straight and generally 40 to 50 ft. 

 to the first branch. The bark is grey, rough, and stringy. It 

 yields a very durable, useful timber; floors built of this may 

 be seen in Freetown up to 100 years old. Practically all the 

 weather-boarding of the wooden Creole houses of Freetown con- 

 sists of Brimstone. It is of a yellow colour when freshly sawn, 

 but turns much browner with acre. The natives in the Pro- 

 tectorate use it for every purpose where sound, durable wood is 

 required. It is not attacked by termites, longicorns, scolitides, 

 or other borers. Young saplings are preferred to any other for 

 rafters in native thatched houses. The ridge pole is generally 

 made of one sapling of this species. The canoe-shaped receptacle 

 used for standing palm-oil in, the wooden platters, the rice 

 •mortars, and a number of similar articles, are made of this wood. 

 A decoction of the bark is used to cure malaria, and natives, 

 footsore by long marching, bathe their feet in water in which the 

 hark has been boiled. Mendi name : Bundui. Creole name : 

 Brimstone tree. It {lowers at the end of April and beginning of 

 Mav for a few days only." 



Mitragyne stipvlom was first described as Nauclea stipulosa 

 by De Candolle (Prodr. iv. 34G) in 1830, from specimens collected 

 by Leprieur on the banks of the Gambia River. The species is 

 now known to occur in nearly the whole of the forest area of 

 Tropical Africa, from Gambia to Angola (Welwitsch), through 

 the Shari region to the Bahr el Ghazal and Uganda, southwards 

 to the Zambesi (Kirk). In regard to Mr. Lane-Poole's statement 



on the use of this plant in Sierra Leone as a remedy for malaria, 



it is interesting to find a note to the same effect by Kirk, who 



collected a specimen near Sena, on the Zambesi, in December, 

 1800. 



Accompanying another gathering by Mr. Lane-Poole (No. 

 214) in Sierra Leone, is a note saying that the leaves of this 

 tree are the only ones used to wrap up Kola nuts, and the same 

 use for them is noted by Mr. Scott-Elliot (jKTo. 5014). Accord- 

 ing to Mr. H. J. Sankey, Conservator of Forests, Southern 

 Nigeria, the tree is M common along river banks and in swamps 

 in Ordo forests; used for canoes, but not durable; an easily 

 worked, fine-grained, light-brown wood which floats.'* For 



further information regarding this tree, see Kew Bulletin, Add. 

 Ser. ix. p. 345 (M. macrophylla). j. h. 



