August 25, 1887] 



NATURE 



387 



eg 



ment to recognize that the public well-being is a public 

 question, will always cause his name to be remembered 

 \sith respect. 



THE FORESTRY OF IVES 7 AFRICA. 

 Sketch of the Forestry of West Africa., with Particular 

 Reference to its Principal Commercial Products. By 

 Alfred Moloney, C.M.G., of the Government of the 

 Colony of Lagos. (London : Sampson Low, Marston, 

 Searle, and Rivington, 1887.) 



THIS, as its title indicates, is intended to form a hand- 

 book to the economic plant-products of Western 

 Africa. Although the author is Governor of a British 

 colony in this region, his remarks are by no means con- 

 fined to British possessions, but are intended to include 

 all that is at present known of economic interest connected 

 with the plants of Western Tropical Africa. 



Following Prof. Oliver, the author deems it expedient 

 to divide Western Tropical Africa into two principal 

 geographical regions. The first, called Upper Guinea, 

 includes the western coast region from the River Senegal 

 on the north to Cape Lopez immediately south of the 

 equator ; the interior drained by rivers intermediate 

 tween these limits, and the small islands of the Gulf, 

 ernando Po, Prince's Island, St. Thomas, and Annabon. 

 The second region, called Lower Guinea, includes West 

 fropical Africa from Cape Lopez southward to the 

 Tropic of Capricorn, including Congo, Angola, Benguela, 

 and Mossamedes. Within the limits here indicated we 

 have British possessions represented by " colonies" and 

 " protected territories," and we have numerous possessions 

 claimed by the French, Portuguese, Spanish, and German 

 Governments, some of which have only lately been ac- 

 quired in the European scramble for African territory. 

 It is only right to mention that the term " possessions," 

 as here applied, is somewhat a misnomer. There is little 

 practically possessed, even by ourselves, except a slender 

 coast-line : the interior is described as having no " terri- 

 torial definiteness," and it is politically, no less than 

 scientifically and commercially, unexplored. Capt. 

 Moloney has wisely not attempted to treat separately 

 of the economic products of these possessions. He has 

 taken their present economic botanical productions in 

 order of export value, and we find that these consist 

 chiefly of palm oil, ground nuts, india-rubber, coffee, 

 gum, dye-woods, cacao, cotton, fibres, and timbers. 

 Palm oil, the produce of Ekeis guineensis, a plant which 

 covers immense tracts of country in Western Africa, is 

 imported to this country to the value of nearly a million 

 and a quarter annually. The yellow palm oil is obtained 

 from the outside fleshy portion (sarcocarp) of the nut, 

 while a white soUd oil is obtained from the kernel. India- 

 rubber is another West African product obtained chiefly 

 from climbing vines belonging to the genus Landolphia. 

 The author was one of the first to draw attention to the 

 value of Landolphia owariensis as a rubber-plant, and it 

 must be gratifying to him to find that the exports of 

 " white African rubber," as the produce is called, have 

 during the last four years risen from almost nothing to a 

 value of nearly ^36,ooa What is known as " Yoruba " 

 indigo, derived from a large tree, Lonchocarpns cyanescens^ 



has evidently a commercial value, but at present it is 

 used to mix with butter or " shea" to make the negroes' 

 hair a fashionable gray ! 



Numerous West African plants are cited as yielding 

 either gum tragacanth, copal, frankincense, gum-arabic, 

 bdellium, or resin ; what is called "ogea" gam, derived 

 from an unknown tree, Daniellia sp., is used powdered 

 on the body and as a perfume by women. The true 

 frankincense-tree of Sierra Leone is Daniellia thurifcra. 

 Camwood, used largely as a dye, is derived from Haphia 

 7utida ; but although barwood is generally said to be de- 

 rived from the same source, it fetches only one-sixth the 

 price of the former. The medicinal properties possessed 

 by numerous West African plants is a subject full of 

 interest. 



Various species of Strophanthus, the active principle 

 of which was formerly used for poisoning arrows and is 

 known to be of incalculable benefit in cardiac diseases, 

 and the merits of the " miraculous berry " {Sideroxylon 

 dulcificnni) of the Akkrah and Adampe districts, which is 

 credited with rendering the most sour and acid sub- 

 stances "intensely sweet", and of the " oro " plant of 

 Sierra Leone, said to act as an irritant poison cumulative 

 in its effects (which has been ascertained at Kew to be 

 a species of Euphorbia), are among the numerous sub- 

 jects requiring further investigation. 



A most cursory glance at this book cannot fail to sug- 

 gest the wonderful wealth both of botanical and industrial 

 problems which are yet unsolved in connexion with West 

 Tropical Africa. The " Flora of Tropical Africa," by 

 Prof. Oliver, of which three volumes are published (the 

 last in 1877), has made a beginning in the work of 

 elucidating some of these problems ; but in recent times 

 few men have systematically pursued West African 

 botany, and the entire absence of a resident botanist or 

 of a properly-equipped botanical establishment in any 

 of our West African colonies has left the plants of a 

 most important region to be known only by the intermit- 

 tent collections of travellers who have either perished 

 there before their mission has been completed or have 

 hastened home to avoid the effects of the deadly climate. 



Nearly 200 pages of Capt. Moloney's book are taken 

 up with condensed notes and references to the economic 

 plants of Western Africa arranged in natural orders 

 according to the " Genera Plantarum " of Bentham and 

 Hooker, To many people both in West Africa and at 

 home these notes, brought together by the assistance of 

 an officer connected with the Kew Museums, will prove 

 of gre.at value. In the appendices are given a copy of 

 the instructions for collecting plants, seeds, and useful 

 plant-products issued by the Royal Gardens, Kew ; an 

 ornithology of the Gambia, by Capt. Shelley ; a list of 

 Coleoptera and of diurnal Lepidoptera of the Gambia, 

 by the same writer ; and a list of reptiles, batrachians, 

 and fishes collected at the Gambia by Capt. Moloney in 

 1884-85. 



The book is well got up and clearly printed, but it has 

 the unpardonable defect of being published without a 

 good alphabetical index. This greatly detracts from its 

 value as a book of reference. It, however, is the chief 

 fault we have to find with a work full of interesting 

 matter for the first time brought together, and evidently 

 prepared with great care. D. M. 



