48 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



confined to the drier western forest edge. The grassy plain: 

 do not, as a rule, merge gradually into the forested area 

 through an intermediate park-like country. The forest 

 trees seem capable only of growing in masses where they are 

 protected from the maximum quantity of sunlight. This 

 massed condition of the forest is particularly in evidence 

 on the Mau summit, where the grassy plains are bordered 

 by a solid wall of trees as dense and as tall as the central 

 parts of the forest. 



The true forest is composed largely of two wide-spread 

 trees, Podocarpus milanjiana and Olea laurifolia, and on 

 western slopes often exclusively of Juniperus procera. As- 

 sociated with these trees is found the giant of the forest, 

 the camphor-tree, Ocotea usambariensis. Another tree of 

 immense size and wide-spread distribution is the killer fig, 

 Ficus mallocarpay which in its youth twines about smaller 

 trees, eventually enveloping them by the rapid growth of 

 its knarled trunk and literally smothering them to death. 

 The pillar-tree, Wehea ajricana, with its smooth white bark 

 and mast-like trunk, is a conspicuous forest tree. A less 

 common tree is the shaggy-barked Walhergia ugandensis. 

 The large, glossy-leaved, magnolia-like tree, Conopkryngia, 

 is another wide-spread species in the forest. One of the 

 large trees is the buttressed-trunked Chrysophyllum, which 

 towers above the other trees and bears only a small crown 

 of leaves at its apex. In certain parts of the forest the 

 small, straggling Trichoclaudus malosanus trees grow in 

 great abundance, especially in juniper forest. The com- 

 monest forest undergrowth is the prickly-leaved Acanthus 

 arboreus. The bramble or blackberry, Rubus, is a common 

 shrub in the forest, where it grows in thickets in the lower 



