FORESTRY OF WEST AFRICA. 309 



purpose. It has also been introduced into the British 

 and Indian Pharmacopoeias ; has been used as a 

 remedial agent in epilepsy, infantile convulsions, &c., 

 but has now nearly or entirely gone out of use, as 

 it is said to cause distressing nausea if used in suffi- 

 cient doses to cause a desirable effect. Indigo is 

 chiefly imported into this country from the East 

 Indies, , also from Guatemala and Northern South 

 America. The imports of this dye in 1882 amounted 

 to 95,488 cwts. — ' Medicinal Plants,' Bentley and 

 Trimen, vol. ii., No. 72 ; ' Treasury of Botany,' Lindley 

 and Moore; 'Florje Senegambiae Tentamen,' Guillemin 

 et Perrottet, p. 178, &c. 



Distribution : Universally cultivated. Wild in 

 Senegambia, and perhaps elsewhere. Cape de Verd 

 Islands. 



Indigofera A nil, L. — The West Indian Indigo. A 

 copiously-branched shrub, three to five feet high. 

 This species of Indigofera is next in importance to 

 /. tinctoria as an indigo-producing plant, for which 

 purpose it is largely cultivated. It has been collected 

 in Senegambia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Mozambique, 

 Angola and Zambesi-land, and is said to be sub- 

 spontaneous in various parts of Tropical Africa, but 

 especially along the Coast about Sierra Leone. — ' Flora 

 of Tropical Africa,' D. Oliver, vol. ii., p. 98. 



This plant was introduced into Senegambia in 

 1825, where its cultivation resulted in giving less 



