Liberia <+- 



It is so common a feature in all the bush country of Liberia 

 that I have ventured to select it as the national flower, and 

 as such it appears on the inner lining of this book and in 

 a coloured plate. The drawing on p. 535 was made by me 

 some time ago from an equally striking Mussnenda in the lands 

 farther east than Liberia (in West Africa), and is probably 

 Muss<enda isertiana. It has seemed to me that this form was 

 actually found in Eastern Liberia, but I may have been mistaken ; 

 at any rate there is as yet no representative of it in our 

 collections, but instead there is the very similar white-sepalled 

 Muss<enda known as Muss^nda conopharyngiifolia. 



The Mussasndas are amongst the most conspicuous flowers 

 of the West African forest region between Uganda on the 

 east and the Atlantic coast. Sometimes they develop handsome 

 large white blossoms with little observable in the way of 

 sepals. Occasionally their flowers become more tubular, and 

 bright scarlet, orange, or lemon-yellow in colour. In connection 

 with the tubular flowers, a single sepal is developed at the 

 base of the corolla, which might be at first mistaken for a bract 

 or specially developed leaf. These exaggerated sepals are 

 usually of soft snowy white, as though they had been cut out 

 of white velvet. It has seemed to the present writer that in 

 the north-eastern parts of the Congo Forest on the borders 

 of Uganda he has come across tall Mussanda shrubs that 

 developed gorgeous crimson sepals in lieu of white, but as 

 he was unable to collect a specimen to verify his belief, the 

 existence of this very handsome shrub has not yet been 

 established scientifically. It resembles a Poinsettia in appear- 



ance. 1 



1 Mr. W. R. Johnson, of the Aburi Botanical Gardens, Gold Coast, informs 

 me that this red-sepalled form is Mitswmla e.rythro/>hylla. It is probably found in 

 Eastern Liberia as well as on the Gold Coast. 



53* 



