Tab. 6272. 
TELFAXRXA occidentals. 
Native of Western Tropical Africa. 
Nat. Ord. Cucurbitace^e. — Tribe Cucumerinete. 
Genus Telfairta, Ilook. (Benth. et Hoolc. fit. Gen. Plant, vol. i. p. 821), 
Telfairia occidentalis , foliis longe-petiolatis pedatim 5-foliolatis, foliolis petiolu- 
latis elliptico-ovatis acuminatis repando-dentatis basi 3-plinerviis, calycis 
tubo hemispherico lobis brevibus latis serratis, corolla campanulata alba 
disco purpureo lobis rotundatis breviter fimbriatis, bacca l-2-i:>edali ovoidea 
alte decaptera, alis crassis. 
T. occidentalis, Hook. f. in Oliv. FI. Trop. Afric. vol. ii. p. 524. 
The original and for fifty years the only known species of 
this singular genus is T. pedata , XIook. (Bot. Mag. t. 2751-3 ; 
Feuillea pedata , Sm. ibid, t. 2681). A native of Eastern 
Tropical Africa (Zanzibar). It is described at great length 
in this work, and as having a fruit three feet long, full of 
seeds as large as chestnuts (one contained 264 of these), which 
are as excellent as almonds, have a very agreeable flavour, 
and yield an abundance of oil equal to that of the finest 
olives ; it is called koueme by the natives of Zanzibar, and 
u oil plant” in the Mauritius, where it was cultivated in 
former times. 
T. occidentalis is the West African representative of the 
East African species, distinguished by the triplinerved 
leaflets, short ovary, short calyx-lobes which are simply 
serrated, the smaller more open white corolla with smooth 
fringes and a red purple eye, and by the few broad wings to 
the fruit ; the fruit of T. pedata having no wings, but many 
very deep grooves. It is cultivated in West Africa for the 
sake of its seeds, which are boiled and eaten by the natives, 
and have been imported as oil-nuts into England. We have 
dried specimens from Sierra Leone, Abebokuta, Old Calabar, 
Fernando Po, and Angola, where it was found by Welwitsch, 
