LIII, MYRTACEAE, 357 
to taste its relishing fruit, since the Jambos cultivated in Golungo 
Alto is not very perfect, although not deficient in the rose-scent 
which characterises the original fruit from India, The Guiaveira 
(Psidium Guajava L.) and the Aracareiro (P. guineensis Swartz) 
are commonly cultivated nearly throughout the province, and they 
also luxuriate as if wild ; the guava seldom attains in Angola, and 
then only under favourable conditions, a greater height than 
25 ft., with a trunk of 6 in. in diameter, giving off at the height 
of 5 or 6 ft. strong lateral branches. 
In Quitage and near Bumba, on his return from Quisonde to 
Pungo Andongo, in March 1857, Welwitsch purchased several 
baskets of excellent guava fruits, each basket containing 60 fine 
fruits, for a vintem—that is, 20 reis, about a penny. The wood 
of the guava tree is of a whitish-grey colour, somewhat verging 
on brown, fibrous, extremely hard and dry, and exceptionally 
durable; the negroes use it for frames of various kinds of musical 
instruments, for carving idols, and for spoons and other such 
utensils : this tree is the ‘‘ Djamboe-Biedji” of the natives in the 
Dutch Indian archipelago. 
The Pitangueira (Hugenia uniflora L.) produces excellent fruits, 
which are like cherries. 
In the Apontamentos, p. 570, Welwitsch speaks of a species 
of Syzygium (Hugenia), which is a magnificent tree of 100 ft. in 
height and more, with a majestic evergreen head, and which 
adorns the banks of rivulets in Golungo Alto and Cazengo; this 
is perhaps Hugenia guineensis, In his ms. notes he also speaks 
of a beautiful evergreen tree, 15 to 25 ft. high in Huilla and 80 
to 100 ft. in Bumbo, which is the Louro (laurel) or Loureiro of 
colonists in Huilla, and the native name is “Nohombo”; it is 
stately and very elegant, having coriaceous shining leaves, and 
throwing out, immediately after the first October rains, large 
bunches of ‘white or brownish flowers, which from December and 
January to March and April are developed into dense bunches 
of olive-like berries, as large as a walnut or a little smaller, of 
a dark-purple or greenish-purple or red-blue colour, and slightly 
or acid-sweet to the taste and somewhat musky; the natives eat 
them with avidity, although when first masticated they are rank- 
musky and very disagreeable: they are nearly always on sale in 
the shops at Lopollo. The wood is brown, dense, and of a fine 
grain. It is very abundant in the neighbourhood of Bumbo and 
Lopollo, and in the whole of Serra da Xella, especially along 
streams. This is perhaps Hugenia benguellensis Welw. 
1, PSIDIUM L.; Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Pl. i. p. 713. 
1. P. Guajava L. Sp. Pl. edit. 1 p. 470 (1753) ; Welw. Apont. 
p. 570 sub n. 170 (P. Guaiava); Ficalho Pl. Uteis p. 184 (1884) 
(P. Guayava). 
P. pyriferum L. Sp. Pl. edit. 2 p. 672 (1762). P. pomiferum L., 
i.c., p. 672; Laws. in Oliv. Fl. Trop. Afr. ii. p. 436; Ficalho in 
Bol.. Soc. Geogr. Lisb. ii. p. 709 (1882). 
