244 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 
Hyphene. Dum Palm or Forked Palm. Kaba, Kodago, Kwalo 
(nut), Goriba (Dr. Dalziel’s Hausa list). ' 
It is found in the Zaria and Niger provinces of Nigeria. 
The only branched palm in West Africa. It attains a 
height of 30 feet. It is more or less gregarious in habit, though 
the individual groups of palms are not very large. It is appar- 
ently somewhat fire-resisting, though this may be due to its 
being found amongst the dry-zone vegetation. The stem is 
short and the two forks often crooked, so that little or no use 
is made of the wood by the natives. The seeds are turned 
into buttons, and so have recently obtained a value for this 
purpose. They were first sent to England from the Soudan, where 
apparently the tree is much more common than in West Africa. 
Borassus flabelliformis, var. Aithiopica. Palmyra or Black Run 
Palm, Fan Palm, Bottle Palm, Arac Palm. Agbon, Olodu, 
Igoti (Yoruba) ; Oluwa (Benin). 
It is a common tree in the dry-zone forest regions of Ibadan, 
Benin, Onitsha, and Ogoja provinces of Nigeria. This palm, 
with the swollen upper part of the bole making it appear more 
like a large inverted bottle, is thus not to be mistaken for any 
other. The huge fan-shaped leaves distinguish it from either 
the Coconut Palm or the Oil Palm. In the distance, too, 
the leaves appear more silvery-green, and not the yellow-green 
of the Coconut, or the bright, fresh green of the Oi] Palm, 
or the sombre dark green of the Wine Palm. A large mass 
of coconut-shaped nuts, but with a smoother, more yellow 
surface, and more cylindrical in shape, without the ridges of 
the coconut, are another feature of this tree. At the base 
of each nut the old sepals of the flower remain, appearing like 
large dark-brown leaf scars. The young seedlings are easily 
seen amongst the grass, sticking up as they do like little 
silvery-green fans of varying size, in detail showing the 
folds of a fan most distinctly, the leaf opening out in a similar 
way toafan. The bole is dark brown and practically smooth, 
showing no leaf scars, and only faintly lined vertically down 
the stem. The base is only slightly swollen, and the roots 
do not form a large mound round it, as is the case with the 
Oil Palm, and to some extent with the Tombo Palm. Inside 
the fruit there are two or three large, flattish nuts. 
The timber is fibrous, hard, but very durable and quite 
termite proof. Although the upper part of the stem is hollow, 
long sectional pieces, four by two, and even thicker, can be 
cut out. It planes up with a smooth surface, and the grain 
looks very pretty with the thick fibres. It nails fairly well 
and splits longitudinally. 
