Am.  Jour.  Pliarm. ) 
March,  1884.  f 
Some  African  Kolas. 
171 
made  by  exhausting  fresh  kola  with  5  parts  of  60°  alcohol  and  the  wine  by 
macerating  the  same  proportions  of  kola  in  a  sweet  white  wine  during  a 
fortnight.  Neither  of  these  preparations,  however,  completely  exhaust  the 
kola,  at  least  as  far  as  the  caffeine  is  concerned.  The  preparation  of  an 
aqueous  extract  presents  considerable  difficulty  in  consequence  of  the  quan- 
tity of  starch,  which  forms  an  unmanageable  magma. 
Concerning  the  "male  kola"  or  kola  bitter,"  as  before  stated,  nothing 
definite  was  known,  and  as  recently  as  the  year  1882,  it  was  referred  erro- 
neously to  a  species  of  Sterculia.  In  the  "  Flora  of  Tropical  Africa,"  Oliver 
says  :  "  The  kola  bitter  of  Fernando-Po  is  the  product  of  trees  belonging 
t©  the  Guttiferse.  The  authors  were  led  by  this  remark  to  attempt  to  obtain 
from  various  parts  of  the  eastern  coast  specimens  of  the  plant  yielding  "  kola 
bitter,"  and  although  the  flowers  did  not  reach  them  they  received  speci- 
mens of  the  branches,  leaves  and  fruits,  together  with  a  sufficient  quantity 
of  seeds  to  allow  of  a  complete  analysis  being  made.  All  the  specimens 
received  from  various  places  corresponded  in  their  characters,  and  showed 
that  the  kola  bitter  is  the  produce  of  a  single  Guttiferous  species  and  not  of 
several.  From  the  material  at  their  disposal  the  authors  refer  it  to  a  new 
species,  Garcinia  Kola,  Heckel.1  The  plant  is  described  as  a  tree  of  var- 
iable aspect,  10  to  20  feet  in  height,  bearing  towards  the  base  of  the  branches 
large  opposite  leaves  (12  in.  long  by  7  in.  broad,)  with  short  petioles,  whilst 
at  the  extremity  of  the  branches  the  leaves  are  much  smaller  (5  in.  by  2  in.) 
The  leaves  are  oval,  slightly  dilated  at  the  base,  mucronate  at  the  apex, 
without  stipules,  full  green  on  the  upper  surface  and  greyish  underneath. 
The  fruit  is  a  berry  the  size  of  an  apple,  with  a  rugose  epiderm  covered 
entirely  with  rough  hairs.  It  presents  three  or  four  divisions,  each  contain- 
ing a  large  oval  cuneiform  seed,  rounded  on  the  external  and  angular  on 
the  internal  face  ;  the  seeds  are  covered  with  an  abundant  sourish  yellowish 
pulp,  constituting  a  true  arillus.  The  fruit  has  at  the  base  the  persistent 
calyx  still  adherent  to  the  peduncle,  and  sometimes  the  persistent  corolla, 
and  at  the  apex  the  persistent  stigma.  The  plant  is  reported  to  occur  all  along 
the  eastern  coast  of  Africa  and  of  Senegal,  intermixed  with  the  Sterculia 
acuminata,  flourishing  under  the  same  conditions,  but  less  widely  distri- 
buted. In  its  known  characters  the  plant  would  appear  to  be  closely  allied 
with  Gareinia  Morella,  which,  however,  is  essentially  an  Asiatic  species- 
The  seeds  present  one  convex  and  two  plane  surfaces,  the  former  being  to- 
wards the  circumference  of  the  fruit.  They  are  covered  by  an  apricot-yel- 
low episperm,  below  which  is  a  large  yellowish-white  macropodous  embryo, 
devoid  of  cotyledons,  and  with  numerous  depressions  on  its  surface.  The 
tissue  is  denser  and  closer  than  that  of  true  kola  and  crackles  under  the 
teeth ;  it  consists  of  a  compact  mass  of  very  homogeneous  cellular  tissue, 
interspersed  here  and  there  with  laticiferous  vessels  of  varying  size  contain- 
ing resin,  the  cells  constituting  which  are  filled  with  starch  granules  larger 
than  those  occuring  in  true  kola. 
1  The  plant  yielding  "  bitter  kola"  was  identified  as  a  species  of  Gar- 
cinia by  Dr.  Maxwell  T.  Masters  eight  years  ago,  and  was  partly  described 
and  the  fruit  figured  by  him  in  the  Journal  of  Botany  for  March,  1875. — 
Editor  Phar.  Jour.,  February  2,  p.  610. 
