FLORA OF NORTH COANZA 343 



later, an arid coastal belt of some 50 miles is 

 succeeded by open forest and savannah, broken 

 by belts of dense vegetation along the river valleys, 

 and a large area round Golungo Alto where the 

 heavy rainfall of CO inches provides a rich flora, 

 which was exhaustively studied by Welwitsch. 

 The annual burning of the long grass of the 

 savannahs is a boon to the insect-eating birds at 

 the time, and to the hunter after it, who can only 

 then see the game, but is very destructive to 

 plant life. 



Among the plants in this region were the 

 various palms already mentioned, Monodora 

 Myristica, and J/. angolensis (Gipepe of the 

 natives), splendid fruit-bearing trees with aro- 

 matic medicinally - used seeds ; climbing plants 

 like Tiliacora chrysobotrya (Abutia), the herb 

 Gynandropsis pentaphylla (Mozambue), eaten as 

 spinach ; and a shrub, Capparis erythrocarpos, 

 with bark used as a caustic. Other plants were 

 Rinorea dentata (Tesse), Bixa Orellana, Oncoba 

 spinosa, 0. Welwitschii (Chichi), and O. dentata 

 (Chichi), bushes with prickly edible fruits ; Psoro- 

 spermum febrifugum and allied species called 

 Mutune, and the small resinous trees Harungana 

 paniculata and Symphonia globulifera (Mun- 

 gondo), all used medicinally in itch ; splendid forest 

 trees of the orders Sterculiacese and Tiliacese, in- 

 cluding among the former Sterculia pubescens 

 (Quibondo), S. tomentosa (Chixe), Edwardia lurida, 

 the famous Cola tree, E. hcterophylla (Mabuin- 

 guiri), and Assonia cuanzensis, a small tree called 

 iNIututu. Among Tiliaceoe, the shrub Grewia 



