THE NIGERIAN TIMBER TREES 241 
fruit, which is borne in large clusters on the terminal shoot 
of the creeper. 
The light-yellow, long spikes of the male flowers are most 
conspicuous early in the season, especially when seen from a 
canoe when passing down a river like the Osse. © 
The natives strip off the bark and long shoots of fish-hook- 
like spines, and use the comparatively smooth canes as supports 
for the canoe mats and for making tying material for house- 
building ; it is also used for making rope. When whole, it 
is used in making bridges as well as for joining logs together 
for rafting purposes. When cut into short lengths and bent 
at one end, it can be used for walking-sticks. 
It is rather a slow-growing creeper, and usually ten or 
twelve grow out of one root stock. In 1904 this cane was 
examined in England as a substitute for rattan, but it was 
found to be more brittle, and the internodes were found to be 
too close together to be attractive as walking-sticks. Still 
later, in 1908, it was tried for basket work, but was found to 
be too coarse both in structure and texture of grain. 
Elesis Guineensis. The Oil Palm, the West African Palm. Ope, 
Ipa ukoro (Yoruba) ; Udin (Benin). 
It is found in all the Southern Provinces of Nigeria and 
as far North as Zungeru, in the Northern Provinces. It belongs 
to the evergreen forest zone, though it will spread with 
cultivation into the mixed deciduous and dry zones. 
It is the common palm of all the farms and forests of the 
moist and mixed zone of Nigeria. It bears a bunch of fruit 
containing as many as two thousand individual fruits in one 
drupe. In the drier parts there may be only as many as one 
hundred seeds. There is one forked palm on the right-hand 
side of the line about seven miles from Ibadan, just beyond 
Moor Plantation. This is a very rare occurrence, and I have 
only seen one in twelve years’ travelling in Nigeria. The male 
inflorescence is not unlike a very close horse’s tail, turned up 
on end. The orange-brown-coloured female flowers are very 
small, and do not last long (a few days). The male flowers 
always appear first, and above the female in each case. The 
natives say some trees only bear male flowers, but it is doubtful 
if this is ever true, except in very isolated cases. It bears 
fruit in the fifth year, and will go on for about a hundred years. 
There is a most marked difference in the height of a tree which 
has grown up in the “high forest” and one which has come 
up in an old farm, the former being fully 100 or even 150 feet 
high and the latter only 20 to 30 feet in height. In a similar 
way the bole of the forest-grown palm is only about 3 feet in 
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