BOTANICAL REPORT OF LIBERIA ool 
land is for the most part sandy and level. Here the tall trees Dialiwm Dink- 
laget and D. guineense reach a height of one hundred and seventy-five feet, 
and Brachystegia leonensis, Macrolobium macrophyllum, and Pterocarpus san- 
talinoides approximately one hundred and twenty-five feet. Of the lower trees 
of the same family, Leguminoseae, Loesenera Kalantha, its large, subrectangular, 
brown pod, standing horizontally, like the arms of a signal tower, and a species 
of Copaifera form the secondary rank, attaining a height of fifteen to thirty 
feet. The lower trees are accompanied by such species as Phyllanthus dis- 
coideus, Macaranga huraefolia, Microdesmus puberula, Pycnanthus kombo, 
and many others. The silk cotton trees also are present here, as elsewhere 
throughout the region visited, their trunks, because of the softness of the wood 
and the regularity of the grain, being used in the manufacture of dug-out canoes. 
Growing epiphytically, are numerous mosses and several epiphytic ferns 
and orchids such as Polypodium Phymatodes and a form of Asplenium normale 
of the second group, and the conspicuous Angraecum Hichlerianum of the last. 
This species, while not rare, is by no means common. It is characterized by its 
opposite leaves on a pendant stem that tends to arch out from the support- 
ing tree. Among the terminal leaves are produced the modest yet beautiful 
flowers with their yellow-green sepals and their white petals and lips. Less 
conspicuous because of their small size and the fact that they grow on the 
upper almost horizontal limbs of the taller trees, are the small spikes of incon- 
spicuous apricot-colored flowers of Listrostachys bidens. Even less obvious 
are the small fern-like plants of Mystacidium distichum which, according to 
Schlechter,! belong in a genus known only from the eastern extratropical regions 
of South Africa. The only Begonia collected by the writer, B. rubromarginata 
was found here. 
Bordering the brooks that empty into the Du River, an occasional bush 
of Ouratea flava and Smeathmannia pubescens is seen in flower, — the flowers 
of the former in large yellow panicles, of the latter, white, about an inch in 
diameter, and produced singly. In the opening of the tall forest, by the river- 
side, Mikania scandens, of apparently wide tropical distribution, climbs over 
the taller bushes and low trees in great profusion. A species of bamboo, not 
in very great numbers, appears to do well in the wet and less densely-forested 
region not far from the foot of the hills, while the five-foot tall orchid, Lissochilus 
Horsfellii, seems to do better in the more open and grassy places. Along the 
path in the more gravelly and slightly more elevated places in the tall forest 
occur many herbaceous types of the families Rubiaceae and Acanthaceae. Here, 
too, Lycopodium cernuum and one or two species of Selaginella, to say nothing 
of terrestrial and climbing aroids, find favorable conditions. 
An occasional apocynaceous tree twenty-five feet high, or the climbing 
rattan palm, Calamus Barteri claims the swamp, as contrasted with the low 
ground, for its habitat, but such species are greatly outnumbered by Raphia 
vinifera, the raphia or wine palm. As has already been noted, this species 
occurs in the lower reaches of the river. Here, where the river is swifter, and 
1 Schlechter, R.: Die Orchideen. 2nd ed. p. 588. 1927. 
