Custodian: University of Glasgow Library Special Collections

Reference: Sp Coll Arnott Add. e3 Vol. 1

This colour plate of Anthonotha macrophylla appeared in Ambroise M. F. J. Palisot de Beauvois, Flore d'Oware et de Benin, en Afrique, Paris: Imprimerie de Fain jeune et compagnie, 1804–7, vol. 1.

Palisot de Beauvois (1752–1820) was a French naturalist. He trained in botany and travelled to West Africa, Haiti and the USA where he documented and collected both plants and insects. In the late 1780s he was involved in establishing a colony at Oware, at the mouth of the River Niger, in present-day Nigeria. From there he conducted plant and insect collecting trips locally and to Benin. He published the findings of his sometimes perilous travels after his return to France in 1798.

Anthonotha macrophylla was the first species in the Anthonotha genus, a subfamily within the Fabaceae or Leguminosae (pea and bean) family, to be collected in West Africa and was named by Palisot de Beauvois. The Anthonotha genus was however not recognised and was corrected on several occasions. This species was conclusively reclassified as Macrolobium macrophyllum in 1919 by American botanist James Francis Macbride (1892–1976). The Anthnotha genus has since been restored for five other species.

Macrolobium macrophyllum is a small tree which grows in deciduous forest undergrowth, has long fruits and broad legumes.