790 TYPES OF VEGETATION. 



found, covered with a yellow dust which the natives mix with 

 their flour. 



Many types of vegetation, however, abound, to which Euro- 

 pean and American travellers are altogether unaccustomed. 

 And it is not only by the exuberance and dignity of their forms 

 that these are marked, but still more by the novelty and grace 

 with which nature seems to have invested them. No European 

 production in any way represents the Anonia Senegalensis, with 

 its large blue-green leaf, and its small fruit, with an aromatic 

 dark-red pulp ; a fruit which in a modest degree displays some- 

 thing of that captivating quality which has exalted its kindred 

 plant, the Cherimoyer of Peru, to its high repute as the queen 

 of fruits. 



Much more singular is the magnificent candelabra-euphorbia, 

 which follows the pattern of its prototype, the cactus of our own 

 country. Next must be mentioned the varieties of fig-trees 

 with their leathery leaves, and, associated with them, those chief 

 characteristics of African vegetation, the combreta and the rubi- 

 acese; tamarinds, with their thick tubular corollas, and shrubby 

 gardenia?, dwarf and contorted. 



In general character the flora of these northern and western 

 districts are alike, and they boast primeval forests which rival 

 the splendor of Brazilian nature. In contrast with this, the 

 bush forests in the higher parts of tropical Africa, broken by 

 the steppes, present in uniformity, perhaps, the most extensive 

 district that could be pointed out in the whole geography of vege- 

 tation. Extending as it does from Senegal to the Zambesi, and 

 from Abyssinia to Benguela, tropical Africa may be asserted to 

 be without any perceptible alteration in character but that which 

 is offered by the double aspect of steppe and bush on the one 

 hand, and primeval forests, in the American sense, on the other. 

 On the west and east this is illustrated by the marked difference 

 between the table-lands and the low coast terraces ; in the centre 

 by the difference between the woods on the river banks and the 

 low flats lying between the river courses. With the southern 

 portion we have been made familiar in following Dr. Living- 

 stone through his journeys. Africa is certainly not the least 

 below the most abundant districts of even our new western 

 world in producing timber trees. Trees and shrubs constitute 



