BUTTER TREE. 
This singular tree is, as yet, but very imperfectly 
known to botanists ; all the information we have 
hitherto obtained respecting it, being from the ob- 
servations of Mungo Park, who has figured a branch 
in his Travels into the Interior of Africa. It ap- 
pears that the tree is of a moderate size, with long, 
alternate leaves. It produces a fruit about the size 
of a walnut, and of an aromatic smell. Within the 
fruit is a stone containing a kernel the size of an 
acorn. 
This slight sketch of its botanical character is all 
we know at present, except the account Park has 
given us relating to its singular produce, which cer- 
tainly ranks it among the first of African vegetables 
in point of utility. 
When Park had reached a certain district, he 
found the people busily employed in collecting the 
fruit of the shea trees, from which they prepare the 
vegetable butter. These trees grow in great abun-r 
dance in the part of Bambara through which he 
was then travelling. It seems that they are not 
cultivated by the natives, but are found growing 
naturally in the woods ; and that in clearing wood 
land for cultivation, every tree is cut down but the 
shea. “ The tree itself,” says Park, “ very much 
