The bark is rough, dark brown or greyish-brown, and often covered with pale yellow lenticels; it exudes a milky juice when damaged.

When growing in open savannah it takes the form of a bush, but in forested areas it becomes a vine and can climb trees, reaching heights of 70 m (230 ft) or more.

It has a rhizome which can survive bush fires, readily throwing up shoots which flower and fruit at a young age even before the twigs have become lignified.

[5] Landolphia owariensis has been used extensively in traditional medicine, with the leaves and stems being used as an anti-microbial, and in the treatment of venereal disease and of colic.

Armed with modern weapons and the chicotte—a bull whip made of hippopotamus hide—the Force Publique routinely took and tortured hostages, slaughtered families of rebels, and flogged and raped Congolese people.

Recalcitrant villages were burned and Force Publique soldiers were sometimes required to provide a severed hand from their victims as proof that they had not misused their weapons.

He wanted to see the number of hands cut off by each soldier, who had to bring them in baskets...A village which refused to provide rubber would be completely swept clean.

The red colour of the rubber appears to be accentuated more and more as the district in which the vine is cultivated is farther from the zone known as the Great Equatorial Forest.

[14]The bosanga method is described in the 1907 Journal of the African Society (as noted in a preface by the editor and postscript by the chairman of the meeting, a vastly more pleasant description than the reports of the Congo Reform Association(CRA).

): Makala is one of the great rubber centres of the Congo, and during my long stay at that post, I had excellent opportunities of studying the method of rubber-collection.

Climbing the rubber-bearing tree or vine, they slash the bark with two or three V-shaped cuts, one below the other, and then arrange a broad leaf underneath, so as to form a trough.

Returned to their hut, the gatherers pour the sap into an earthenware pot containing water, place it on the fire and stir it with a stick which they call bosanga.

As the rubber-laden caravan of men, women and children, headed by the chief and the forest-guard, wind their way from their village into the post, discordant notes are blown on a trumpet made from an antelope-horn, and all chant a chorus.

Long before the party reaches the post, this barbaric music, ever increasing in volume, heralds their approach to the official in charge, and he makes his preparations to receive the rubber.

He meets the laden caravan at the beam-scale of the station where the rough baskets are weighed and the price paid in cloth, salt, bells, soap, beads and suchlike coveted treasures.

A tin label is attached to each, with the distinctive number and place of origin, and they are then laid out in long rows, ready for transport by porters, canoe, rail and steamer to Europe.