EUCOFFEA HOOK. F. 79 



History: — Liberian Coffee Is native in the negro republic, Liberia, 

 and was early introduced into other regions along the West African 

 coast, from Sierra Leone to Angola, This large-berried coffee was 

 called to the attention of Sir Joseph Hooker in 1872, at which period 

 Coffea liberica Bull was under cultivation in the Gold Coast and 

 in Sierra Leone. During the same year, Sir John Pope Hennessy, 

 Governor of the West African Settlements, sent nine plants to Kew; 

 but they were dead upon arrival. About this time, however, Mr. 

 C. S. Salmon, acting administrator of the Gold Coast, made it 

 possible to obtain 480 seeds from the Rev. T. B. Freeman, who had 

 a plantation of coffee on the Secoom River near Accra. Plants 

 from these seeds were raised in India; and the following year Mr. 

 Bull of Chelsea, England, imported living plants. He published 

 the first description of it as Coffea liberica Bull. This name was 

 adopted by Mr. Hiern in his paper "On the African species of the 

 genus Coffea,'' in the Trans. Linn. Soc, ser. 2, i (1876) 169-176, 

 where he described it in detail, and figured the plant under the 

 name given by Mr. Bull in preference to an unpublished manuscript 

 name in the Herbarium of Afzelius. 



This species became known in Europe about the time the coffee- 

 leaf disease appeared in Ceylon. It was claimed that it was resist- 

 ant to this fungus disease; and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew 

 supplied plants and seeds to Indian and Ceylon planters. Moreover, 

 it was hailed as a species which flourished at sea level whereas C. 

 arahica L. required the hilly and mountainous districts of the tropics 

 for successful cultivation. These two factors resulted in its imme- 

 diate introduction into all tropical regions. It has attained its most 

 extensive cultivation, excepting its native habitat in West Africa, in 

 the West Indies, Ceylon, Malay Peninsula (Selangor), North 

 Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and India where it is mainly grown in Sylhet, 

 Assam, Burma, and the Andaman 1. Laerne says that it is "little 

 thought of" in Brazil since "it produces little and that irregularly." 

 It is rather extensively cultivated along the eastern coast of Mada- 

 gascar, where hybrids have arisen which produce a superior product. 

 Hybrids have occurred in other localities wherever Arabian and 

 Liberian coffee are grown in approximation. The hybrids are said 

 to be immune or but very^ slightly susceptible to the leaf-blight. 



