APPENDIX IV 

 THE KNOWN PLANTS OF LIBERIA 



Mainly from Materials in the Heruarium of the Royal Botanic 



Gardens, Kew 



( IVith the permission of the Director) 



By otto staff, Ph.D., F.L.S., 

 Principal Assistant, Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 



The botanical exploration of Liberia began with the arrival of Dr. 

 Theodor Vogel, a German, who with his assistant, John Ansell, 

 accompanied the British Niger Expedition of 1841 as botanist. 

 He landed at Monrovia on July 5th of that year, but left the 

 following day for Grand Basa, where he stayed till the 14th, when 

 the expedition sailed for Cape Palmas, which they reached on the 

 16th and left on the i8th of July. In spite of the shortness of the 

 stay, which moreover fell in the rainy sea.son, he succeeded in 

 bringing together a collection of about 150 species, which were in- 

 cluded in Bcntham and Hooker's Flora Ntgritiana {\^4.g). Here also 

 a short memoir of his life may be found, whilst a translation of his 

 diary containing a sketch of the littoral vegetation of Liberia was 

 published in Hooker's London Journal, vol. v. pp. 621-44, and vol. vi. 

 pp. 79-106, Most of his plants were collected in the sandy littoral near 

 Grand Basa ; the plants marked by him " Monrovia " were gathered 

 on an excursion from Monrovia along the Mesurado peninsula, and 

 those from Cape Palmas on the narrow isthmus which separates this 

 cape from the mainland. His entire collection is at present at Kew. 

 The next attempt to explore the flora of Liberia was also made 

 by a German, Philipp Schoenlein, who went to Cape Palmas in 1855, 

 but died there very soon. His collection, which consisted of only a 

 few specimens, was worked out by Professor Klotzsch of Berlin, who 

 published an account of it in the Ab/iandlitni^en der Akadeinie der 

 Wissenscltajten of Berlin, 1856 (pp. 221-42, tab i.-iv.). Schocnlein's 

 plants are preserved in the Berlin Herbarium, and were not seen by me. 



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