166 ZAMBEZIAN FLORA 



lily, which in the highlands of the interior possesses 

 a strong, almost sickly perfume through which you 

 may journey at times for days, loses its scent in 

 the low-lying plains bordering the great rivers, and 

 becomes almost if not entirely odourless. It rises 

 to a height of rather over a foot from the ground, 

 and its clusters, or umbels, of blooms are almost 

 transparent white with longitudinal lines of salmon 

 colour and a pale yellow centre. An uncommon 

 pink gentian, I think the Exacum quinquinervium, is 

 also found in the grass-lands, with four more members 

 of the same family if of less attractive exterior. 



I suppose, from such knowledge as I possess of 

 the wide and constantly expanding subject of 

 African flora, that taking the Zambezi valley as a 

 whole, the three botanical divisions most commonly 

 represented are the Leguminosse, Apocynaceae, and 

 Compositae, the Malvacese running them very close. 

 The first named includes many valuable food pro- 

 ducts, whilst its range also comprehends timber 

 trees of the utmost commercial value. The second 

 named extends over the interesting and valuable 

 indigenous rubber-producing vines, and includes 

 multitudes of rambling shrubs, from the fragrant 

 and beautiful Acokanthera spectabilis and Adenium 

 multiflorum, that extraordinary shrub which does 

 not flower until it sheds its leaves, to the poisonous 

 Strophanthus and the Carissa acuminata. Of the 

 forty different species of Landolphia vines belonging 

 to the order of the Apocynaceae, I am unaware of 

 more than ten which yield rubber to a profitable 

 extent, and of these the L. florida and the 

 L. petersiana are the dry-country species. The 



