[Crown Copyright Reserved. 
ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW. 
BULLETIN 
OF 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
No. 4] [1923 
XIII.—_A REVISION OF BRACHYSTEGIA. 
J. Burtr Davy AND J. HuTcHINSON. 
In the Flora of Tropical Africa (1871) only three species of 
Brachystegia were described. Since then the great increase in 
our knowledge of the botany of Central Africa, especially of 
Rhodesia, Nyasaland and the Congo, has broug t to light 
a large amount of additional material. This is particularly 
well shown in the case of Brachystegia, of which there are enume- 
rated fifty-four species in the present revision; seventeen of 
these are described here for the first time. 
The economic importance of this genus is indicated in the 
following notes made by one of us on a visit to Rhodesia and the 
Belgian Congo in 1919. Owing to the unsatisfactory state of 
the genus as represented in herbaria, it was found impossible to 
name the species correctly without making a complete revision. 
For this purpose we have had the privilege of examining the 
from the herbaria in Berlin, Brussels, Upsala and the 
Natural History Museum, S. Kensington. We are much indebted 
to the Directors of these institutions for their kindness in lending 
us these specimens, without which the task would have been 
impossible. 
Distribution The genus Brachysiegia is confined to equa- 
torial Africa, none of the species being known to occur north 
of 10° N. lat. or south of the Tropic of Capricorn (unless possibly 
an odd species occurs a little south of Inhambane, in Portuguese 
East Africa). It is of interest to find that the species extend 
Explanation of Plate IT. 
Fig. 1. MooTawndu, (Brachystegia sp. ?) Burtt Davy 17897. Photo- 
graph by Mr. Burtt Davy, near Luishisi Copper Mines, Belgian Congo, 
Aug. 1919. 
Fig. 2. ROA Bw NER tit er filiformis ?). A tree left standing 
from the original fo beside the main road leading to the Governor- 
General’s Ges daan » Fclisabethville, Belgian Congo. Photograph by 
Mr. Burtt Davy, Aug. 1919. 
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