534 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
“cinnamon drab” (Ridgway, R.— Color standards and color nomenclature. 
Washington, D.C., 1912). This is apparently a species of Mucuna. In the 
forest at the edge of the swamp, and in sandy soil is a conspicuous species of 
Aframomum, the leafy fronds of which are ten to fifteen feet high. The flowers, 
produced at the foot of the cluster of fronds near the ground on separate pedi- 
cels, are pinkish with yellow throats. The fruits of this species, as of the one 
noted in Monrovia, are also eaten by the natives, and have the same flavor 
and texture. An interesting fungus was found in this swamp, one that here- 
tofore has been reported only from South America and the West Indies. Just 
as in those places, this species, Delortia palmicola of the Fungi Imperfecti, 
forms small, white, gelatinous, hemispherical, fruiting bodies on the old de- 
caying parts of the fallen palm fronds or on old stumps. 
Crinum natans grows here, not in the river, but in little pools in the open 
made by the enlargement of the small brooks that drain the swamps. It, 
Crinum, is accompanied by the white tropical water lily of the genus Nymphaea. 
Along the shallow margin of the pool, and indeed where there is any seepage 
and the ground is wet, the water fern, Ceratopteris thalictroides abounds. 
At the higher level, on the hillsides, the flora is somewhat different from 
that of the lower levels, although Dialiwm guineense persists almost to the 
summit of the hills, where the tree, one hundred and seventy-five to almost 
two hundred feet high is in flower, although the flowers, light creamy white 
in color, are barely visible from below. The trunk of the tree at shoulder level 
is a foot and a half to two feet in diameter, and when cut, exudes from the 
cambium layer a red gummy substance. A more abundant tree is Xylopia 
africana that attains a height of about one hundred and fifty feet and appears 
to have an almost continuous fruiting season. When first collected on July 25th 
only fruits were seen on the trees and at that time they were green, yet two 
weeks later, while the mature bluish-green fruits still persisted, the tree was 
in full flower. It is quite possible, probable in fact, that such a deduction is 
erroneous and that the production of fruit takes place either only during cer- 
tain parts of the year or in alternate years. On the ridges of the hill grow single 
specimens of Cola chlamydantha, a tree only twenty-five to thirty feet high, 
which produces its flowers caulicolously. These flowers, thick and fleshy of 
corolla, are grayish externally, but scarlet red on the inner surface. Above, 
at the apex of the long slender trunk, the branches arise sparsely in an irregular 
whorl and at or near the ends of these are produced the large palmate leaves 
on foot-long pedicels, in the cavities of which, two species of ants are harbored 
in compartments separated by septa. Another tree, apparently rare in the 
virgin forest, is Musanga Smithi, the umbrella or cork tree which has a crown 
of large palmate leaves. The wood of this tree is very light, and when cut, 
gives off the odor of sumac. <A species of Clerodendron is one of the more strik- 
ing lianes in this forest, striking, not for the fact that its thick stem extends 
to the top of the lower trees, but because of the fact that its panicles of white 
flowers are produced on the lower parts of the stem, some of them actually 
touching the ground. A more slender lane, is Salacia pyriformis, of the upper 
