The Liberian Flora 



missing. So far as I am informed, 

 the papyrus is absent from the forest 

 belt along the West African littoral 

 — at least, I have never seen it there, 

 and am not aware that specimens of ' 

 it have been collected in that region. 

 It appears on the River Congo, but 

 not I think farther to the west than 

 Stanley Pool. Further research into 

 the purely West African flora may 

 show that though scarce it is still a 

 native of the West African coast. 

 But at any rate so far it is absent 

 from Liberia. 



Amongst Grasses should be men- 

 tioned specially the Bamboo. This 

 magnificent grass is met with in huge 

 clusters or groves at various places 

 in the coast region of Liberia, a few 

 miles back from the sea. Unfor- 

 tunately, the photographs which I 

 took of these bamboos developed in 

 too unsatisfactory a way for exact iden- 

 tification, and only serve to establish 

 the existence of this giant grass. 

 Biittikofer refers to the bamboo also 

 in his work, and ascribes its intro- 

 duction to the American colonists 

 (from the West Indies). It is 

 practically certain that the Scotch 

 missionaries who founded the two Presbyterian Missions at Old 

 Calabar (in the Niger Delta) brought a bamboo from the 

 VOL. u 561 4 



238. SEEDS OF ANCHOMANES 

 DUBIUS 



