The useful trees of northern Nigeria

THE KUKA OR BAOBAB TREE Adansonia digitata Linn.
H. V. LELY Assistant Conservator of Forests
NIGERIA.
Price 10/-
Published by the Crown Agents for the Colonies, 4, Millbank, London, S.W. 1.
1925.
The text and plates of this volume have been prepared with the primary object of identification of the trees of the savannah forests of Northern Nigeria. The volume is, in no sense, a Flora, and no attempt has been made to include all the species found in the region under survey. Trees, being distributed over a large number of Families of the plant kingdom, are a small proportion of the total number of flowering plants, and their systematic arrangement would not, except in a few cases, be an aid to identification. Some 30 Families are represented by the 120 species included, in one of which there are as many as 36 species. The botanical names are arranged, therefore, in their alphabetical order so as to group certain genera and species whose similarity aids identification and to make the volume, in its index form, handier for reference.
The text is arranged in paragraphs, the first giving a general description of the form, height, girth, habitat, locality, &c., successive paragraphs describing in detail the bark and slash, thorns, wood, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds, with a few notes on uses where these are known. These paragraphs are in uniform order for rapid reference.
The text is supplemented by drawings of the flower, leaf, thorn, fruit and seed, sketched from the living specimens. Wherever possible the drawings are actual size to avoid calculations from enlarged or reduced figures, but a number have been enlarged to show structures, or reduced owing to their actual size. In several cases sections of various parts have been made to illustrate peculiarities of structure, a pocket lens being used for this purpose, though practically all the parts drawn are visible to the unaided eye.
The majority of the botanical names have been verified through the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.