No. XXII.
BOTANICAL APPENDIX.
BY ROBERT BROWN, ESQ. F.R.SS. L. & E., F.L.S.
The Herbarium formed during the expedition, chiefly by the late Dr. Oudney, contains specimens, more or less perfect, of about three hundred species. Of these one hundred belong to the vicinity of Tripoli; fifty were collected in the route from Tripoli to Mourzuk, thirty-two in Fezzan, thirty-three on the journey from Mourzuk to Kouka, seventy-seven in Bornou, and sixteen in Haussa or Soudan.
These materials are too inconsiderable to enable us to judge correctly of the vegetable productions of any of the countries visited by the mission, and especially of the more interesting regions, Bornou and Soudan.
For the limited extent of the herbarium, the imperfect state of many of the specimens, and the very scanty information to be found respecting them, either in the herbarium itself, or in the Journal of the collector, it is unfortunately not difficult to account.
Dr. Oudney was sufficiently versed in Botany, to have formed collections much more extensive and instructive, had the advancement of natural history been the principal purpose of his mission. His time and attention, however, were chiefly occupied by the more important objects of the expedition: as a botanist he had no assistant; and the state of his health during his residence in Bornou must, in a great degree, have rendered him unable to collect or observe the natural productions of that country.
For the few specimens belonging to Soudan, we are indebted to Captain Clapperton, who, after the death of Dr. Oudney, endeavoured to preserve the more striking and useful plants which he met with. His collection was originally more considerable; but before it reached England, many of the specimens were entirely destroyed. It still includes several of the medicinal plants of the natives; but these being without either flowers or fruit, cannot be determined.
In the whole herbarium, the number of undescribed species hardly equals twenty; and among these not one new genus is found.
The plants belonging to the vicinity of Tripoli were sent to me by Dr. Oudney, before his departure for Fezzan. This part of the collection, amounting to one hundred species, was merely divided into those of the immediate neighbourhood of Tripoli, and those from the mountains of Tarhona and Imsalata.