Mineenga, or moosimbatee; (leaf only). Leaf unequally pinnate; perhaps
Leguminosse ; 12 to 20 ft. in g irth ; handsome-foliaged clean-looking tree,
giving out a blood-red sticky juice on incision. Uses—grain-mortars,
drums, spurtles, pipe-bowls. The fruit mashed is considered a remedy for
cough. Wood is impervious to insects, smells pleasantly, and is of a rosewood
colour. 4° S., and 3° 15'N. 1862-3. (33 and 686.5.)
Mosho (leaves only); Tree with simple opposite leaves. Bark can be
Crumbled off with the nail. Fruit, not edible, said to be one-stoned and
scarlet. The roots burnt are used for fumigating wooden milk-pots—a
thick, sticky, dark gum, coming off yellow on the fingers, lies under the
b a rk ; Madi rocks, 3° 15' N. 1863. (741.)
J. A. GEANT,
C a p t a i n B e n g a l A r m y .
NOTE ON CAPTAIN GRANT’S COLLECTION OF PLANTS.
By Dr T. Thomson, F.E.S.
C a p ta in G r a n t having, on his return from Africa, presented his
collection to the Hookerian Herbarium, the determination of the specimens
was begun by Mr Black, the Curator, and was made over by
him to me when he was unfortunately obliged to give it up from ill
health. The collection consists of about 750 species, represented for
the most part by single good specimens, carefully ticketed, with numbers
attached referring to a note-book in which all essential points of
habit and? uses, are entered.
The catalogue is based on a comparison of the specimens with the
Hookerian. Herbarium, and is necessarily imperfect in the present
state of our knowledge of the African flora. Large collections have
of late years been made in Eastern Africa by Kirk and Meller of Dr
Livingstone’s expedition, and in Western Africa by Baikie, Barter, and
Mann; but they are still, for the most part, undescribed. A general
flora of Tropical Africa is, however, I believe, contemplated by Government,
on the recommendation of Sir W. Hooker.
For,the present, a few general observations are all that can be made
on this interesting collection. I t consists in all, as already mentioned,
of 750 species, collected between Zanzibar and the southern border of
Egypt. Of these 420 belong to known species, and this number might,
no doubt, be increased to 450 by more careful research. We may,
therefore, say that three-fifths (perhaps even two-thirds) of the whole
are published species. There remain from 250 to 300 unpublished
species. Of these, two-thirds at least, on a rough estimate, have been
collected by previous travellers, so that not more than 80 or 100 species
are quite new. Even this is probably an over-estimate.
Leaving out of consideration the Egyptian plants, which were only
met w ith at or near the north tropic, a general survey of the collection
shows the great uniformity of tropical African vegetation. The small
number of plants indicates a poor flora, and therefore probably a comparatively
dry climate. We find in it a great number of widely-diffused
2 T