Liberia <•- 



of India and Malaysia. The affinities of the West African flora 

 with that of the Malay Archipelago and Peninsula, Burma and 

 Southern India (and perhaps Brazil), are nearly as marked as the 

 resemblance between the West African fauna and that of Eastern 

 Tropical Asia, and even of South America. This relationship 

 has led to much confusion in botanical nomenclature. Various 

 rubber trees and vines of Tropical Africa were, until recently, 

 grouped under the same genera as Apocynace^e of the Malay 

 Region and of South America. Subsequent examination showed 

 the differences to be generic — more than merely specific. And 

 so such names as Kickxia, Tabernamontana and others were 

 originally applied to African rubber trees, which now figure under 

 the separate genera of FuHtumia, Conopharyngia, etc. (The 

 Malayan Kickxia yields no rubber.) 



Liberia is the forest country of Africa par excellence. 

 Probably in this part of the Dark Continent the forest belt is 

 deepest, even at the present day. Here the inroads of man 

 on the dense virgin forest of the Equatorial regions have been 

 least apparent, at any rate westward of the Niger : nevertheless 

 in the coast belt of Liberia the primeval forest has had to give 

 way to a dense scrub of palm, wild coffee, and low, shrubby 

 trees. Here the forest had been originally felled for agriculture. 

 The denseness of the interior woodland is at once a guarantee 

 of unexploited wealth and a terrible hindrance to the civilisation 

 of the country. It is remarkable how closely the big trees 

 grow together and at the same time to what a relatively slight 

 depth of soil their roots penetrate. Indeed in most parts of 

 the country, except in the accumulations of alluvial soil, the 

 hard granite rock is at a depth of only six or seven feet below 

 the leaf mould of the forest. The roots of the trees spread 

 out rather than grow down. They often interlace with one 

 another on the surface. Great trees are easily uprooted and 



524 



