Vernac. names.—Efirin (Lagos, Dawodu; Sierra Leone, Cole, Dunstan); Aramoho (Benin, Dennett); Ntion (Eifik, Old Calabar, Holland); Mahopo (Batanga, Bates); Nonoom (Gold Coast, Wilkins).—Fever-bush, Tea-bush leaf, Sierra Leone Fever plant.
Itu, Cross River (Holland, No. 36, 1897, Herb. Kew), Benin (Dennett, No. 8, 1906, Herb. Kew), Abinsi, Muri Province (Dalziel, No. 773, 1912, Herb. Kew); and in West Africa generally.
Used as a febrifuge, Gambia (Dudgeon, Gambia Govt. Gaz. 6th March, 1909, p. 128), medicinally by the natives in fevers to promote perspiration, Sierra Leone, Fernando Po (Barter, Herb. Kew), by Europeans and natives as a febrifuge in Sierra Leone, where bundles of the plant are sold in the markets, and Brazil (Ghewy, Herb. Kew), as a medicine—for stomach and rubbed on the skin, lame back, Batanga (Bates, Herb. Kew), for dysentery, fevers, etc.—the leaves boiled with peppers, Aburi, Gold Coast (Johnson, Herb. Kew), and the leaf as a fever cure in West Africa, mixed with Lantana Camara (see p. 516) (African Lakes Corptn. Herb. Kew). Various medicinal uses are attributed to the plant, but chiefly as a febrifuge (see Shipley in Nature, seq., Cole, Journ. Soc. Arts, liii. 1905, p. 1068, Holmes, Pharm. Journ. [3] viii. 1878, p. 563), and it is used as salad, Old Calabar.
The oil is orange-yellow, with an aromatic thyme-like odour and pungent taste. Leaves from Northern Nigeria yielded 1·21 per cent. (Bull. Imp. Inst. 1908, p. 209; 1914, p. 131), and from Sierra Leone (sample of 116 lb. yielding on distillation 6½ oz. of oil) 0·35 per cent. (Sierra Leone, Roy. Gaz. Jan. 11, 1908, p. 15; Bull. Imp. Inst. l.c.). The large proportion (32 per cent.) of thymol gives the oil some antiseptic value (l.c.), and it may prove a valuable source of this drug.
The plant has been recommended for driving away mosquitos, and it aroused considerable interest a few years ago; but experiments have proved that the plant is of no value for the purpose.
A perennial, 3–6 ft. high; may be grown as an annual, easily raised from seed and grows freely in almost any well drained soil; found on old farms, Munchi (Dalziel, Herb. Kew), common in open bush, Batanga (Bates, l.c.).
The heading and list of illustrations (foot of p. 528) and the reading list (p. 529) are not transcribed.