60 
ON  AFRICAN  TURMERIC. 
in  his  work  on  Monandrian  plants,  has  given  a  good  figure  and 
description  of  this  production  reared  in  the  Botanic  Gardens  of 
Liverpool,  from  seeds  brought  from  Africa  in  1819.*  Roots 
were  subsequently  received  from  Dr.  Wallich,  at  Calcutta,  who 
had  discovered  the  same  species  growing  in  Nepaul. 
During  the  early  settlement  of  Sierra  Leone,  a  great  variety 
of  useful  seeds  and  roots  were  forwarded  by  Dr.  Roxburgh  from 
the  East  Indies,  with  the  object  of  increasing  the  commercial  re- 
sources of  the  infant  colony.  Suspecting  this  plant  might  thus 
have  been  introduced  and  subsequently  naturalized  by  culture  I 
instituted  a  series  of  inquiries  among  the  old  African  settlers, 
in  the  hope  of  obtaining  some  satisfactory  information  relative 
to  its  origin.  Sufficient  data,  however,  did  not  exist  to  deter- 
mine this  point.  Several  of  the  negro  inhabitants  nevertheless 
asserted  that  it  had  been  imported  from  the  Slave  coast,  where 
the  roots  were  extensively  employed  by  the  Foys  and  Mahes  to 
dye  grass  and  cotton  fabrics  a  yellow  hue.  It  is  therefore  no 
doubt  the  product  to  which  Robertson  alludes,  when  he  observes 
that  in  Dahomey  "  these  yellows  are  dyed  with  a  root,  which  has 
the  appearance  of  ginger.  The  color  appears  to  resist  acids 
better  than  some  of  those  used  in  Britain." 
Thonning,  in  his  Ztescrivelse  af  Gruineske  Planter,  briefly  de- 
scribes a  Cannarubra  flourishing  in  Acquapim,  and  the  Curcu- 
ma longa  as  cultivated  by  the  natives  in  that  portion  of  the 
Gold  coast,  but  does  not  specify  any  distinct  locality  where  the 
latter  may  be  procured.  Hitherto,  no  species  of  Curcuma  has 
been  described  as  indigenous  to  intertropical  West  Africa,  and 
it  seems  doubtful  whether  it  has  even  been  introduced  by  Euro- 
pean colonists;  if  so,  the  cultivated  plant  has  since  disappeared. 
Thonning,  doubtless  from  a  casual  inspection  of  these  tubers,  may 
have  been  led  to  the  erroneous  conclusion  that  they  pertained 
*  His  descriptive  outline  is  as  follows  ; — 
Gen.  Char.  Anther  single,  attached  to  the  margin  of  the  petal-like  fila- 
ment ;  style  erect,  club  shaped ;  stigma  an  obtuse  scale  ;  capsule  3-celled  ; 
seeds  numerous,  globose. 
Spec.  Char.  Spike  erect ;  upper  lips  of  corolla  in  two  sections,  ovate, 
deeply  bifid,  claws  long,  narrow,  lower  lips  narrow,  linear,  notched  at  the 
apex,  declined  towards  the  right;  leaves  broad  lanceolate,  strongly 
nerved. 
