32 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 



Brimstone has a fruit not unlike coffee, and bears seeds plentifully ; 

 it should therefore not be difficult to raise seedlings for making planta- 

 tions. The trees grown from stool-shoots do not appear to attain 

 nearly such a large size as those grown from seedlings in the forest. 



2. Chlorophora excelsa (Rock Elm, African Oak) is a common 

 tree which is cut for local use. The heartwood, which rapidly darkens 

 from a light-yellow brown colour to a dark old-oak brown colour 

 on exposure to air, is very durable for inside or outside work. Though 

 white ants attacks and destroy the sapwood, they make little or no 

 progress in properly seasoned heartwood. Locally it realises 10s. 

 per 100 feet. It is plentiful, and has a distinct tendency to spread 

 into old farms, where the seedlings have more light to develop than 

 in the forest. 



3. lyawey (Red Cedar, or Isganwe) is also a common tree which is 

 cut for local use. It is a large and straight-growing tree, and attains a 

 girth of about 10 feet. Owing to the wood being comparatively soft, 

 easy to saw and of a nice red colour, it fetches 12s. per 100 feet, which 

 is more than is obtained for several other local timbers. 



4. Oldfieldia Africana (Black Oak, Beechwood) is cut for local 

 use, for sale as planks at 2Jd. per foot, and uprights and beams at 

 3s. per cubic foot. One of the chief uses of this timber is for the 

 keelsons of the locally made sea-going boats. Owing to the diffi- 

 culty of the local sawyers in handling heavy logs on the raised wooden 

 pit-saw framework on which the logs are sawn, only comparatively 

 small trees are felled, and consequently there is more waste, and under- 

 sized trees are prematurely sacrificed owing to the poor methods of 

 the local sawyers. Less timber, especially heartwood, is thus 

 obtained. 



5. Parinarium sp. (White Oak) is a moderately common 

 tree. It attains a good height and a girth of 12 feet. It has large 

 root flanges reaching about 10 feet up the bole. Although a some- 

 what hard wood, it is used locally either as planks and posts or as 

 beams and logs. It is said to be durable, and is worth 2s. per cubic 

 foot when sawn. 



6. Afzelia Africana (Mahogany, Kontah) is a medium-sized tree 

 which is not very prevalent in the forest, but is much more so outside 

 in the open forest country. The timber, which is hard, has an open 

 grain with a good yellow-brown colour, not unlike Iroko. It is very 

 durable, and used as planks and logs. In the plank it is sold at 6d. 

 per superficial foot, and in the log at 3s. 6d. per cubic foot. This is 

 considered one of the best local woods, partly owing to its grain being 

 somewhat similar to mahogany. Seedlings appear in old farms where 

 there are but few grasshoppers. Otherwise trees grown in a nursery 

 are attacked by these insects, as well as by rodents of different kinds. 



7. Danidlia Ogea (Blue Bessie) is sold as planks at 3d. per super- 



