per surface glabrous, pale beneath; the lowermost leaves 

 shorter. Sheaths ample, with a membranous margin, ele- 

 gantly lineated, and having a large, obtuse, appressed 

 ligule. Spike terminal, large, shorter than the uppermost 

 leaves, consisting of loosely imbricated, coriaceous, broad, 

 ovate, smooth, four-flowered bracteas, each about three 

 inches long ; inner bracteas thin and membranaceous, 

 much smaller than the outer ones. Flowers very large ; 

 orange-coloured, highly fragrant. Calyx two inches long, 

 oblong at the upper end, subventricose and split on one 

 side, mouth bearded, entire. Tube of the Corolla cylindri- 

 cal, two inches and a half long, double the length of the 

 calyx ; limb spreading ; exterior laciniae linear, acute, 

 loosely patent, about fourteen lines long ; inner two (or 

 lateral ones) cuneate, unguiculate, rather shorter than the 

 outer ones, but their apex much broader than those, short- 

 ly clawed. Lip very large, roundish, retuse, lateral mar- 

 gins sometimes notched, an inch and a half in diameter, 

 furnished with a short, broad claw. Filament divaricate, 

 thick, semicylindrical, orange-coloured, equalling in length 

 the inner petals, rather, though very little, shorter than the 

 lip. Anther oblong, thick, fleshy, half an inch long, with 

 a sagittate, bilobate base, the lobes of which are slenderish. 

 Ovary thick, ovate, obscurely triangular, shining, smooth : 

 Style filiform, pallid, with the usual two short, yellow bodies 

 at its base (within the tube) : Stigma rather large, clavate, 

 compressed, transverse, obtuse and convex, greenish -yellow, 

 villous. Wallich. 



The present is one among many fine plants, for speci- 

 mens and drawings of which I have again to acknowledge 

 myself indebted to W. T. Aiton, Esq. A root of Hedy- 

 chium fiavum was brought by Dr. Wallich from India, in 

 August, 1828, and presented by the Hon. the East India 

 Company to Kew Gardens, where it produced its magnifi- 

 cent blossoms in the same month of the present year. 



The specimen was received through Dr. Wallich, and 

 that most enlightened and most liberal of Botanists, not- 

 withstanding his numerous and important engagements, 

 has been so kind as to draw up the above account of it for 

 me, although there is already an accurate description in 

 Flora Indica ; partly, as he says, because he never saw 

 the plant in such perfection before, as it was produced 

 at Kew, and partly, because it seems possible, that the 

 roots may have been derived from the mountains on the 



Irawaddi, 



