1953] 



VEGETATION OF NY AS ALAND 



185 



From Nchisi the Chia area was reached by a narrow road winding down the 

 escarpment of the Rift, then over uninhabited foothills to near Benga village 

 on the lakeshore, where the road turned north on the lake plains and in about 

 eight miles came to Chibotela village, beside which our party was camped when 

 I rejoined them on August 31. Chibotela was about three miles inland from the 

 lake and eight miles south of Chia Lagoon. A stream which flowed by the camp 

 site in the wet season was dry except for a string of yellowish waterholes, some 

 shaded by thin lines of rain forest trees, others open to the hot sun and dotted 

 with blue waterlilies (Nympbaea caerulea Savigny). The lake plains, covered as 

 were the foothills with dry woodlands, had a general elevation of about 1,575 feet 

 above sea level. Casual shade temperature readings for the camp gave morning 

 lows of 53° to 55° and maxima of 88° to 92° F. 



Chibotela camp was shaded by spreading woodland trees, and pervaded 

 by the sweetish smell of blood and fresh meat. This was big game country. The 

 bag of our party included buffalo, rhino, lion, leopard, zebra, wart-hog, and 

 among the larger antelope, hartebeeste, reedbuck, and waterbuck. Large animals 

 destructive to the mealie, cotton, and rice crops of the villagers were so nu- 

 merous that native hunters were employed by government to abate the nuisance. 

 Hippos were said to do much damage along the lakeshores. And as in most parts 

 of Nyasaland where crops were grown, thieving baboons were a costly pest. 

 A heavy infestation of tsetse fly apparently was not accompanied by much sleep- 

 ing sickness. 



In the neighborhood of Chibotela, the gently sloping, slightly ridgy lake 

 plains had generally sandy soils on which the larger trees of the open wood- 

 land, 40 to 60 feet tall, included Brachystegia utilis Hutch. & Burtt Davy, 

 Isoberlinia globifera (Benth.) Hutch., Afrormosia angolensis (Bak.) Harms, 

 Parinari mbolaOUv., and Swartzia madagascariensis Desv. Uapaca kirkiana Muell. 

 Arg., found almost everywhere in Nyasaland on sandy woodland soils, was less 

 common than U. sansibarica Pax. Among smaller trees were Hirtella bangweolensis 

 (R. E. Fries) Greenw., Dalbergia nitidula Welw. ex Bak., Strychnos species, and 

 Hexalobus monopetalus (A. Rich.) Engl. Deciduous and leafless Stereospermum 

 knuthianum Cham., the "pink jacaranda" of some European residents of the 

 Protectorate, made a fine showing on the floodbanks of streams, where Eriosema 

 englerianum Harms, Adenodolichos punctatus (Micheli) Harms, and Flemingia 

 grabamiana Wight & Am. were common shrubs. New leaf colors gave reddish, 

 brownish, and yellowish tinges to the trees on recently burned areas. Earlier 

 Durning of most of the country had produced an abundance of short green grass 

 for the game animals, especially on the sandier soils and in moist depressions 

 called dambas, but few herbs had sent up flowering shoots after the fires. 



There were dambas of various kinds, ranging from well-wooded slight hollows 

 of stiff soil to treeless expanses containing marshes and waterholes. In one 

 large open damba, about a mile east of camp, a great many blue and lilac water- 

 lilies, and a few white ones, were flowering in an area of open water bordered by 

 tall beds of papyrus and reeds. Small herbs on moist edges of the marsh in- 

 cluded Xyris 17474, Burmannia 17473, Polygala capillaris E. Mey., and Alectra 

 rigida (Hiern) Hemsl. 



Rain forest elements, represented in bits of gallery woods fringing streams 

 and in clumps of brushy forest on the banks of waterholes away from streams, 

 included Chrysophyllum argyrophyllum Hiern, Garcinia huillensis Welw. and 

 Trichilia emetica Vahl as trees, Canthium zanzibaricum Klotz. and Landolpbia 

 kirkii Dyer as subscandent shrubs, and the large vine Capparis tomentosa Lam. 



