CHAPTER XXV. 



AFRICAN TIMBERS. 



No large division of the globe is so little explored in 

 respect of its Timber as the African Continent, and 

 beyond a few regions such as the Cape and Natal, parts 

 of the West Coast, and a few others, we are almost 

 uninformed as to the supplies or values of the native 

 woods for the purposes of Europeans. 



The best known of African woods is the 



AFRICAN OAK OR TEAK.* 



The African Oak tree, the African Teak {Oldfieldia 

 africand), is yielded by a species of Euphorbiaceae. It 

 has been known under a variety of names, and confounded 

 with Mahogany under the name of Swietenia Senega- 



* Cape Teak, or Cape Oak, is an unimportant South African wood, referred 

 to variously as Strychnos, Atherstonea, and Canthium, and has nothing to do with 

 this timber. The term "Oak" is misapplied in different parts of the world. 

 As usual, the Australian colonists have done this largely, numerous species of 

 Casuarina (see p. 252) being thus designated ; but settlers in various other 

 parts of the world have given the name to many other trees having nothing in 

 common with true Oaks. Thus Catalfa longissima goes by this name in St. 

 Domingo, and in Dominica Hex sideroxyloides, in New Zealand Alectryon 

 txceUum. The Ceylon "Oak " is Scheichera trijuga. 



