Abstract
THE Department of Botany at the British Museum (Natural History) has received 838 plants collected on the Cambridge Botanical Expedition to Nigeria by Messrs. P. W. Richards arid R. Ross. The main object of the expedition was to make an ecological survey of a limited area of West African rain-forest comparable with those previously made by Mr. Richards in Guiana and Sarawak. This meant a study of the floristic composition and structure of various types of primary forest on one hand, and a study of soil and micro-climatic conditions on tho other. In addition, Mr. W. J. Fletcher Cambell made a general soil survey. Mr. Rosa studied the succession of secondary forest on old farms and Mr. G. C. Evans worked on the growth, transpiration arid assimilation of two species of undergrowth shrubs. Tho base camp was about five miles from Akilla in the Shasha Forest Reserve, Ijebu Province, and the area worked was mostly within a radius of five miles from the carnp. Four months were spent here, and a visit, via the creeks, was made for a fortnight to Nikrowa in the Okomu Forest Reserve, Benin Province, where the rain-forest is said to be the finest in Nigeria. Collecting was mainly incidental to ecological work. Tho specimens are particularly rich in forest trees, and special attention was paid to Bryophytes. It was possible to fix a hygro-thermograph in a tree top eighty feet from the ground in primary forest and to take daily readings over a period of several weeks. A mud and bamboo laboratory was built with a dark room quite efficient for working with panchromatic plates.
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Ecological Expeditions in East and West Africa. Nature 136, 212–213 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136212b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136212b0