466 WEST AFRICAN FORESTS AND FORESTRY 
It is estimated that there are six or seven million Oil Palms behind 
Loanda inland, though this sounds rather exaggerated. 
In Nigeria it is most widely distributed in the Southern Provinces, 
and the densest “ stands ” are found in each of the river basins wherever 
the forest has been cleared (see illustration 103). 
Wherever the dry season is very prolonged and the locality shows 
a shallow soil, overlying laterite or rock, the Oil Palm first of all appears 
after the forest has been cut down. After a few years the trees are 
subject to annual grass-fires, and while still bearing fruit they begin 
to fail and scarcely last half the ordinary period of their life. 
Localities of that nature are found in the Afikpo, Onitsha, Ifon, and 
parts of the Ibadan districts. 
The Oil Palm is also one of the first trees to appear after the 
mangrove swamp and Tombo Palm region is passed in going through 
the forest zones from the coast inwards. 
2b. VARIETIES OF THE Or PatmM.—These, according to Professor 
O. Beccari, of Florence, are as follows: 
Eleis Guineensis. 
Var. albescens. White Oil Palm: Abe-fita or Abe-fufu (Gold 
Coast). 
Angulosa. Oleporo Eyop (Old Calabar). 
Ceredia. Adi-be (Gold Coast). 
Communis. Udin (Benin). 
Communis forma, dura. Ade-pa (Gold Coast). 
Idolatrica. Sacred Palm. Abe-Obene (Gold Coast). 
Intermedia. 
Macrocarpa. 
Marcrocarya. Abubube (Gold Coast). 
Pisifera. 
Repandra. Kessede. _ 
Rostrata. Mbana Oyop (Old Calabar). 
The Benin people differentiate the Udin or ordinary palm from 
Ogedin or the King Palm on account of its having smaller bunches 
of fruit, each fruit being longer and having a softer shell. They also 
treat Evirommilla or the Palm of Everlasting Life as a separate 
species. The Yorubas, however, consider that there are three species 
of Oil Palm. 
According to the German experiments in the Cameroons, the 
Lisombe or soft-shell Oil Palm does not come up true to type, approxi- 
mately only 5 to 10 per cent. growing to the true variety. From the 
locality in which the Lisombe Palm was and is found, it looks as if 
the high rainfall (over 300 inches) had really been one of the main 
factors in evolving this type of Oil Palm. In fact, natives who know 
the ordinary Oil Palm and the soft-shell Oil Palm say it is rather 
