=The Flowers= are in slender, drooping panicles and are 1 inch across with 4 yellow sepals, 3 orange-veined petals, 3 stamens and a hairy ovary and pistil. They appear from December onwards. =The Fruits= are pods which may be any shape from a single-seeded, round knob to a sickle-shaped, or straight, fleshy pod containing, when dry and ripe 6 or more hard shiny, brown seeds varying in shape from flat and oval to rounded cubes. The ripe pod is yellowish and falls entire. They ripen at the end of the year or later. =Uses.=—The wood is used for implement handles and fuel. The flowers are eaten fresh or as sauce. The pods are used for making a bitter, not unpalatable drink, which is a laxative. The young saplings of this species are those used by the Filani for the tests of endurance by flogging undergone by their youths. In hollows in the trunk are found cocoons of a silkworm, _Anaphe_ sp. (tsamiya) which are boiled with water and ashes, dried in the sun and spun into the silk thread used for ornamenting the best gowns. [Illustration] =TERMINALIA AVICENNIOIDES= Guill. & Perr.—_Baushi_. COMBRETACEAE. This is one of the commonest trees in a certain type of savannah, of medium quality and height, and it is associated with other species of the same genus, confusingly alike, over hundreds of square miles of forest, especially round about the parallels of 11° and 12° N. The leaf, though it is one of the means of identification, is very variable in width, so that more than one species seems to be included under the single name. With other _Terminalia_ species it often forms over 50 per cent. of the forest and occurs pure in small groups. Usually a small tree, 15-20 feet high, it attains over 30 feet, with a short bole and widely spreading branches forming a large and very open crown. The distinguishing feature is the cottony felt covering of both sides of the leaf, the unequal basal lobes, and the downy fruit. =The Bark= is grey or blue-grey, with very deep fissures and prominent vertical, wavy ridges of hard cork, typical of the genus. The slash is yellow, rapidly darkening on exposure. =The Wood= resembles that of Oak in colour and hardness and often in grain, being light brown with splashes of lighter tone, specially noticeable on the tangential section, with a bright sheen. In transverse section the rings are clear and the pores are clearly visible to the unaided eye as lighter than the ground colour, grouped in concentric rings of soft tissue, or evenly distributed in numerous festoons. The rays are very fine, closely spaced and slightly wavy. The wood is hard, sound, carpenters well and weighs 55 lbs. a cubic foot.