The only other single-flowered species of the genus is A. 
arundinaceum, Oliver and Hanbury (Journ. Linn. Soe. vol. 
viii. p. 109), which agrees with this in size and the orbicular 
lip, but has a more slender Scape and a very different fruit 
and seed from 4. melegueta. ie 
The Grains of Paradise are imported from all parts of 
Western tropical Africa, from Sierra Leone to the Congo, but 
whether from wild or cultivated plants is not known. The 
specimen here figured was sent, in 1869, from Sierra Leone 
by M. Bockstadt, an excellent correspondent of the Royal 
Gardens, and flowered in May of the present year. 
Descr. Root-stocks creeping. Leafy slems one to two feet 
high, slender. Zeaves four to six inches long, spreading, 
distichous, narrowly elliptic-lanceolate, one inch broad, 
rounded or subacute at the sessile base; ligule very short, 
obtuse ; sheath slender. Scape radical, two to three inches 
long, curved, terete, densely clothed with imbricate appressed 
convolute oblong cuspidate bracts, which are coriaceous and 
dull green with red margins and tips. lower solitary, 
two to three inches long, very pale pink suffused with 
yellow towards the centre. Outer perianth spathaceous, 
acuminate; inner with the dorsal segment boat-shaped, 
suberect, obtuse ; lateral segments elongate-subulate from a ' 
lanceolate base, recurved ; lip oblong with an orbicular erose — 
horizontal blade two inches in diameter. Filaments with the 
lateral processes erect, subulate; anther with a triangular 
terminal lobe, entire erose or 2-fid at the tip, the lateral 
angles acute. S/aminodes erect, free, linear, truncate. Stig- 
matic lobes small.—J. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Base of perianth, anther, and style; 2, staminodes and base of 
style :—both magnified. 
