FLORA OF WESTERN AFRICA. 231 



except that its arid and sandy soil supports a scanty vegetation of 

 stunted plants. The Zanguebar coast is not more familiar to the 

 botanist, and is mainly covered with marshes. 



But the littoral of Western Africa is gifted with a flora as luxu- 

 riant as it is varied. According to Dr. Welwitsch, who has explored 

 this region, previously almost a terra incognita to Europeans, " the 

 special feature in the neighbourhood of Benguela is the abundance of 

 parasitical Lorunthacece, or mistletoe, on the thickets of the thorny 

 Mimosa, to which are attached those Roccellse (or Archils), the Roc- 

 cella tinctoria and R. fu-ciformis, that yield so brilliant a lilac dye. 

 In the gardens of Benguela the vegetables of Europe are most 

 successfully cultivated, as well as a great number of fruit trees 

 belonging both to tropical and temperate climes : citron and orange, 

 the olive, the cashew-nut, the anana, the fig, the vine, the pome- 

 granate, the elais-palm, the banana, the anona, and the corrossol. 

 The vine bears grapes twice every year, and the crop on each occasion 

 is abundant and of fine flavour. The gardens in the vicinity of Mossa- 

 medes, between the fifteenth and sixteenth parallels of south latitude, 

 exhibit a curious medley of vegetables on every side, where you may 

 see flourishing side by side the banana and the potato, manioc and 

 wheat, sugar-cane and flax, barley, and every kind of Spanish potato." 



A few miles from Cape Negro the coast rises for from 300 to 

 350 feet above the sea-level, forming a continuous plateau, where the 

 flora, though meagre when compared with that a little further to the 

 north, offers nevertheless to the traveller some objects of the highest 

 interest. It was here that Dr. Welwitsch met with the strange plant 

 which, in commemoration of its intrepid discoverer, Sir William 

 Hooker named Wehvitschia,* but which the natives call Tumboa. 

 " In its youth its two original cotyledonary leaves appear to grow 

 considerably, and extend horizontally in opposite directions, raised 

 but little above the surface of the sand, whilst the intervening stock 

 thickens and hardens, assuming an obconical shape, flat at the top, 

 and rapidly tapering below into the descending root. As years go 

 * Order, Gnetacex. 



