Botanical Garden of Edinburgh, to which Kew is indebted 

 for the magnificent specimen here figured. 



Desce. Stem erect, three to five feet high, slender, one 

 inch diameter at the naked base, leafy upwards, simple. 

 Leaves clothing the stem, gradually larger upwards, imbri- 

 cated all round, sheaths concealing the stem, uppermost 

 seven to ten inches long, all linear- or obovate-lanceolate, 

 spreading and reflexed, narrowed into broad petioles which 

 are three to four inches long, pale bright green, rather paler 

 below, a little waved, acuminate, points with an almost fili- 

 form mucro ; nerves obsolete when fresh, faint and parallel 

 when dry. Spike terminal, solitary, sessile, erect, cyhndric, 

 three to seven inches long, obtuse, most dense-flowered ; bracts 

 red or purple-brown ; flowers white. Bracts ovate-lanceolate, 

 acute, as long as the perianth-tube, bracteoles subulate- 

 lanceolate. Perianth on a short slender pedicel; tube slender, 

 cylindric, one inch long, obscurely dilated at the base ; seg- 

 ments one-third shorter than the tube, narrow-linear, obtuse, 

 concave. Stamens equalling the perianth -segment, filaments 

 straight, slightly thickened in the middle ; anthers small, 

 oblong, yellow. Ovary small, narrow-ovoid; style very 

 slender, stigma capitate, three-lobed. — /. D. H. 



Fig. 1, reduced figure of entire plant ; 2, flower and bracts; 3, leaf; both 

 of natural size : 4, flowers and bracteoles; 5, stamens; 6, ovary: — all 

 magnified. 



