PREFACE 



The more original portion of the ' Flora of Tropical Africa ' is 

 based upon the very extensive collections that have accumulated 

 at Kew during the last ten years, sent home by the Botanists and 

 Collectors attached to various scientific and exploratory journeys 

 in Tropical Africa. The principal of these collections are 

 enumerated below. 



From our very imperfect knowledge of the vegetation of many 

 parts of the Continent, even of those which have been long more 

 or less in European occupation, and from our complete ignorance 

 of that of the immensely larger area not yet opened up, the present 

 work must not be regarded as presenting anything like a complete 

 account of Tropical African Botany. It serves rather as a vehicle 

 for the publication of the important botanical results of much 

 recent expenditure of life, toil, and money, which would otherwise 

 have been lost to science or anticipated by other nations, and 

 (embracing references to all hitherto published African species) as 

 a repertory which it is hoped may be useful to Botanists, no less 

 than to future explorers and residents in Africa interested in the 

 natural productions and economic products of the country. 



The number of species here described being doubtless much 

 smaller than the vast area of intertropical Africa must contain, it 

 has been necessary to go into greater detail, especially in the 

 descriptions of new species, than would have been the case had the 

 Continent been more thoroughly explored, and its botanical 

 novelties more nearly exhausted. In a well-explored area the 

 species may be determined by a few selected diagnostic characters ; 



