Ghana Herbal Pharmacopoeia, PORSPI/TTC/CSIR 1992

Gledhill, D, West African Trees, Longman, 1972

Hawthorne, W, Field Guide to the Forest Trees of Ghana, NRI/ODA.

Serle, W, G.J. Morel, W. Hartwig, A Field Guide to the Birds of West Africa, Collins, 1977

SACRED LEAVES OF Candomblé. African magic, medicine and religion in Brazil. By Robert A. Voeks. 236pp. Austin: University of Texas Press. $37.50 (paperback, $17.95). - 0 292 78730 8.

Voeks describes how, while their masters were introducing temperate agrosystems to the tropical environment, Brazilian slaves were discovering analogues to the flora they had left behind in West Africa. In fact, the natural environment of Bahia, linked geographically to West Africa in former times as part of the supercontinent Gondwana, is not far removed from that of Nigeria and Benin (formerly Dahomey). Some of the key ingredients of traditional West African medicine (and cuisine), such as dende palm oil, were easily introduced and cultivated in the New World. For others, such as the sacred iroko tree, Afro-Brazilians found botanically related substitutes.

John Ryle, Times Literary Supplement July 31 1998

Park, Mungo  Travels in the Interior of Africa 1799
302    Shea butter.  Tree never cut down.  Fruit, kernel first dried in the sun.  Kernel boiled in water to produce butter.  Kernel is enveloped in a sweet pulp, under a thin green rind.  Butter keeps a whole year without salt.  Whiter, firmer and of a richer flavour than cow milk.

The baobab tree:

http://www.senegal-online.com/senega32E.htm

http://adansoniabonsai.homestead.com/index.html

The shea-nut tree

http://www.sheabutter.com/