280 xliv. LEGUMINOS.E. [Pterocarpus 



Coll. Carp. 440. Called " Mirahondi " or " Munhaneca " ; the resin 

 is sold under the name of " Sangue do Drago." Coll. Cakp. 441. 



The trunk does not usually exceed 18 in. in diam. ; its wood is com- 

 pact, heavy, strong, of a moderately fine grain of a dark purple colour, 

 taking easily a good polish, and consequently well adapted for various 

 domestic uses, for agricultural implements, and for weapons, among 

 which must be principally mentioned the war-clubs of the natives 

 which are most frequently made of the heart of this wood ; the resin, 

 which drops in abundance from incisions made in the trunk, is of a 

 blood-red colour with a peculiar lustre, and is employed by the natives 

 in the treatment of wounds. Coll. Carp. 442 is the fruit of Ptero- 

 carpus rufescens Benth., a lofty tree from the Isthmus of Panama ; it 

 was obtained for comparison with the Angolan specimen. 



52. OSTRYOCARPUS Hook, f . ; Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. PI. i. p. 548. 



.1. 0. ? Welwitschii Baker in Oliv. Fl. Trop. Afr. ii. p. 240. 



Goldngo Alto. — A stout shrub, climbing far and wide ; trunk 

 slender, arborescent, ^ to § in. in diam., when old rather flattened but 

 not quite like that of Amerimnon hostile O. K., (Herb. No. 1880), with 

 stellately arranged spines in the middle ; wood very hard and tenacious, 

 flexible, dense, firm, yellowish. Used for drum-hoops. Branches 

 erect-spreading, as well as the branchlets at length pendulous ; some 

 of the branchlets reduced by abortion to short blunt spines; leaves 

 deciduous, impari-pinnate ; leaflets 10-15-jugate, opposite, especially 

 beneath glaucous, herbaceous or thinly fleshy-coriaceous, deciduous at 

 the flowering season ; petioles pyriform-globose at the base, lasting for 

 a time on the flowering branches ; flowers pedicelled, collected in rather 

 lax and erect racemes, finely variegated with sulphur colour and red ; 

 calyx bilabiately campanulate, beset with stalked glands, densely hairy 

 inside, bright-red at the base, yellowish-green on the limb ; vexillary 

 limb rather the longer, broad, emarginate, obtuse ; the lower lip deeply 

 3-lobed with acuminate lobes ; corolla papilionaceous ; petals of bright 

 sulphur colour, red-spotted or punctate at the base of the lamina 

 with long and slender claws ; standard orbicular, slightly emarginate, 

 together with the channelled claw acutely keeled on the back, at the 

 time of flowering reflexed on the sides, as long as or hardly shorter 

 than the wings ; wings oblong, with a long one-sided stipes, not 

 adhering to the keel ; petals of the keel similar to the wings in shape, 

 as short or shorter, unguiculate, loosely cohering below the apex of the 

 lamina ; stamens sometimes only 9, diadelphous, of unequal length ; 

 vexillary filament shorter than the rest, free, somewhat curved at the 

 base ; the remaining filaments united two-thirds way up into a tube 

 open in front, flattened on the free part, a little longer than the ovary ; 

 anthers versatile, ovate and obtuse, others rarely acuminate by the pro- 

 duction of the connective at the apex beyond the cells, one sometimes 

 petaloid with a small falciform lamina ; the base not uncommonly 

 bearing another sub-effete anther ; ovary sessile, lanceolate, pilose, with 

 a fissure or easily parting on one side ; ovules usually 5, nearly orbi- 

 cular ; style but little incurved, smooth, filiform, of equal thickness up 

 to the stigma which is truncate-capitate and a little thicker. In dense 

 primitive thickets, in the ascent to Sobato de Bumba ; fl. 7 July 1856. 

 Near the cataracts of the river Cuango ; not in fl. beginning of August 

 1855. No. 1884. 



The Cabindas make walking-sticks from this plant. In the absence 

 of the pod, the final determination of the genus of this plant remains 

 uncertain. 



