270 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 
The natives use the fruit medicinally and the timber for house- 
building. The pods are usually about a foot long and half an 
inch in diameter. 
Cassia toro. Cassia. Ako Kere (Yoruba). 
It is found at Olokemeji, in the Abeokuta province of 
Nigeria. Its medicinal use as a remedy for ringworm is not 
known to the natives of that locality. 
Cassia fistula. Cassia. Bembedo (Yoruba). 
It is rather an uncommon tree of the Benin province of 
Nigeria, one specimen being found in the Idah district ; 
the longer (1 to 2 feet) and stouter (} to 1 inch) pod is most 
typical of this tree. It is otherwise much the same size as 
Cassia Steberiana. The natives use the fruit medicinally, 
but look upon the tree as a “ great medicine.” 
Cassia podocarpa (G. and P.). Cassia. Asunwon (Yoruba). 
It is found in the Olokemeji Reserve. 
Shrub with yellow flowers. 
Cassia occidentalis. Blackwater Plant. Rere (Yoruba). 
It is a small shrub-like herb with large upright flowers, 
which is usually found growing in waste places at the edge 
of villages in the Yoruba country, in the mixed deciduous 
forest zone. A medicine to cure blackwater fever is made 
from this plant, though doctors now say it is not an infallible 
cure. 
Ormosia laxiflora (Benth.). False Dalbergia. Shedun (Yoruba). 
It is found in the Ibadan, Abeokuta, Onitsha and Ogoja 
provinces of Nigeria, chiefly at the edge of the dry-zone forest. 
It is ‘a small tree, 12 feet high and 18 inches in girth, with 
almost brick-red or orange-coloured bark, which is thin and 
often scarred by natives. It has a long, thin pod. with thin, 
flat seeds. It reminds one very much of a small Dalbergia. 
It stands the annual fires well, though it gets singed each year. 
The base of the bole is often’ somewhat enlarged with the 
constant cutting of the bark both of the stem and the upper- 
most roots. 
The timber is yellowish-red and not very hard, but rough 
to work up, being more in the nature of a turner’s than a 
joiner’s wood. The grain is often by no means straight, and 
the wood shows a little figure. 
Withstanding the fires so well, it serves, or should serve, 
as a nurse for the introduction of more valuable species amongst 
the dry-zone trees, especially on the laterite soils. Natural 
regeneration is good and it sprouts well from the stump. Root 
suckers do not appear to be so prevalent as in many dry-zone 
species. It is a light-loving species, which does not protect 
