Volume 1
Catalogue of the African plants collected by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-61.
- British Museum (Natural History) Department of Botany
- Date:
- 1896-1901
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Catalogue of the African plants collected by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-61. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Chasmanihera] Jateorhiza strigosci Miers, Contrib. iii. p. 29 (Oliv. FI. Trop. Afr. i. p. 42), from Congo and Fernando Po, appears to differ. The following may belong to this species:— Golungo Alto.—A strong dioecious shrub, climbing to a great height, and then hanging down ; tomentum of the stem rufous-ferruginous ; leaves more or less lobed after the fashion of species_of Croton. Roadway near Mussengue ; fr. Jan. 1856. Coll. Carp. 197. 2. TILIACOBA Colebr.; Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. PI. i. p. 36. 1. T. chrysobotrya Welw. ex Ficalho, PL Uteis Afric. Port. p. 87 (1884). 7 Cocculus sp., Welw. Synopse, p. 29, n. 69 ; Triclisia chrysobotrya Welw. ex Ficalho, l.c. A robust glabrous arborescent shrub, climbing to a great height, evergreen; trunk at the base usually ^ to \ ft. diam.; branches even thicker, voluble; bark dark-purple, glossy; branch- lets very tenacious; leaves elliptical, acuminate or cuspidate, wedge-shaped at the base, coriaceous, rather glossy, of nearly the same colour on both surfaces, clearly 3-nerved at the base, lg to 4A by 1| to 2| in.; petiole glabrous, | to 1 in. long, usually bent or flexuous and slightly thickened near the apex; inflorescence cymose-racemose or paniculate, at length pendulous, elongated, issuing from the leafless trunk; branches slightly puberulous; flowers greenish. Male flowers: outer sepals 6 to 8, unequal, imbricated, pubescent; inner sepals 3, glabrous, thick, valvate in aestivation, shortly acute and hooded-inflected at the apex; petals 3, very small, spathulate, squamiform, alternating with the innermost sepals; stamens 6, three or more times the length of the petals; filaments flattened, more or less united at the base or free; anthers large, obtuse, cells longitudinally turgid; ovary altogether absent or occasionally represented by a bundle of hairs. Female flowers: carpels glabrous, 24 to 30 or more; styles subulate; fruit-carpels several (12), obovoid-oblong, gibbous, not much compressed laterally, glabrate; 14 in. long, shortly stipitate, drupaceous, orange-coloured, with smell and taste of the fruit of Prunics Padus L.; the scar of the style lateral, near the base, next the hilum ; seed induplicate after the manner of the genus; albumen apparently ruminated. Golungo Alto.—In primitive woods of Serra de Alta Queta, fre- quent but rarely flowering, fl. March 1856, fr. Feb. 1855. Native name “Xib” or “ Abutua.” No. 2308. Coll. Carp. 196 (partly). Wood abnormal, almost as in Piperacem. Coll. Carp. 944. The Butua, or Abutua as it is generally called, is a robust climber, and is met with in the virgin forests of the mountainous districts, and especially in those of Golungo Alto, Cazengo, and Dembos. The trunk of this shrub not rarely attains 1 to 14 ft. in circumference, and is of a very remarkable structure ; the natives employ the pounded roots as well as the leaves, branchlets, bark of the trunk, and the fruits as a decoction against diarrhoea, gonorrhoea, and various other distempers, especially long-established syphilis, much commending the infallible efficacy of this remedy, which they moreover apply in cases of snake-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28120486_0001_0049.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
