soda or potashes are needed. The leaves are often left in the sun a few hours before 

 cooking. The reason given for this is that it makes them less bitter. The cooked 

 dish is well liked in spite of its slight bitterness and the leaves are of sufficient value 

 to exchange for maize or groundnuts in the villages. 



Any surplus of leaves at the end of the rains is dried as mfutso. (See Vigna 

 unguiculata for method of preparation.) 



Results of Cooking and Palatability Trials, Mwera Hill, 1941. 

 Some 14 varieties of beans were tested for cooking times and palatabilit5^ 

 There was little variation in cooking times ; there were minor differences of flavour 

 and toughness of skin, " Canadian Wonder " and a small white kind, " Amani No. 

 1268," seemed to be best for flavour and also had the softest skins. 



The varieties ranged in size from 50 to the oz. for a local kind called kana- 

 bulunji, to 125 to the oz. for a dark red Kenya kind. The leaves of all kinds were 

 palatable with no apparent differences in flavour or texture. 



Ref. 13; 23. 



*353. Phoenix dactylifera L. (Palm.) Date Palm. 



There is a small plantation of this palm in cultivation in the Bwanje Valley 

 and a few have been grown successfully at Kachebere R. C. Mission in the Fort 

 Manning District. The Bwanje Valley palms were planted by the celebrated 

 Sergeant Major Ali Kiongwe, a Zanzibar! whom Sir Harry Johnston had taken 

 on his expedition to Kilimanjaro and who he re-employed in 1889 to accompany 

 him to Nyasaland as his headman. Ali Kiongwe was a coastal Swahili of Zanzibar 

 who served with the British Central African Rifles in Somaliland and is said to have 

 kept a few seeds of his date ration. On eventual retirement he made his home in 

 the Bwanje Valley; tradition has it he settled with 33 wives, planting the date 

 seeds he brought from Somaliland and taught his wives how to fertilize the date 

 flowers on the female palms. As far as is knoAvn the descendants of Ali Kiongwe 

 still hawk dates each year in Nyasaland. 



There is some difficulty in the fertilization of dates as the proportion of male 

 palms is small and the pollen is produced before the stigma of the female palm is 

 receptive, therefore flowers of male palms must be picked and kept in a tin for 4-5 

 weeks and then used to fertilize by hand. The palm grows freely up to altitudes 

 of 4,000 ft. In North Africa, dates are found near oases and where there is irrigation 

 so that they receive more water than the 8 ins. of rain that is prevalent in that area. 

 Seeds from packet dates germinate readily but the palm does not breed true from 

 seed. The best palms are grown from suckers. It is suggested that the fertile 

 damp parts of the Lower Shire would be a good place for the palms. 



The uses of the palm are numerous, besides a food it provides matting, rope, 

 timber, etc. 



Ref. 23; 27. 



354. P. reclinata Jacq. (Palm.) Wild date palm. 



Kanjedza (N, Y). (Both large and dwarf forms.) 



A palm with solitary or tufted stems up to 30 ft. tall, crowned with a graceful 

 head of bright, green, somewhat spine-tipped pinnate leaves, leaflets linear, lanceolate ; 

 flowers small, cream, in much-branched panicles produced in the axils of the leaves; 

 fruits, small, oval, bright scarlet turning black when ripe. 



The young leaves are much sought after by Africans for making mats and 

 fine baskets (E.A.). 



Ref. 14; 17; 26. 



96 



