168 RIDLEY. 



8. ZINGIBER Adans. 



Herbs with short, thick, more or less aromatic rhizomes. Stems leafy, 

 the leaves lanceolate or elliptic. Spike from the rhizome, rarely on the 

 leafy stem, sessile or usually peduncled, cylindric, conic, or fusiform, 

 with large, dense, yellow, red, or green bracts inclosing one or more 

 flowers. Calyx tubular, three-lobed,* short. Corolla-tube rather longer 

 than the bract, with oblong or lanceolate lobes, usually white, or creamy, 

 sometimes marbled black. Staminodes wanting. Lip 3-lobed, median 

 lobe longer. Stamen-filament linear; anther-cells linear, the connective 

 prolonged into a long curved beak. Style as long. Capsule thin-walled, 

 splitting into three valves. Seed black, angled, arillate. 



Species about 30, Indo-Malaya to northern Australia. 



There are two or three secies, perhaps more, in the material submitted, too 

 incomplete to describe. These plants have the spikes so full of water that they 

 require the flowers to he separately dried, or they quickly rot. 



Spikes terminal on the leafy stem; bracts narrow, oblong 1. 7.. mollis 



Spikes radical. 



Spikes glabrous, cylindric, blunt 2. Z. Zerumbct 



Spikes pubescent, acute 3. Z. pubisquama 



1. Z. mollis sp. nov. 



Stems solitary, slender, about 60 cm tall, the rhizome short. Leaves 

 narrowly lanceolate, 12 to 15 cm long, 2 cm wide, acuminate, caudate, 

 narrowed at the base, not petioled, the upper surface glabrous, beneath 

 sprinkled with white hairs; ligule papery, rounded, entire, glabrous; 

 sheath sparingly hairy. Spike terminal, cylindric, C cm long. Bracts 

 yellow, narrowly oblong, apex rounded, 2 cm long and nearly 1 cm wide 

 at the base. Bracteoles narrower, oblong, glandular-dotted on the edge. 

 Ovary glabrous. Calyx thinly spathaeeous, tubular, bifid into two lan- 

 ceolate lobes, 2 cm long. Corolla-tube cylindric, 2.5 cm long, the lobes 

 lanceolate, acuminate, acute, 1.5 cm long. Lip trilobed, rather large, the 

 lateral lobes nearly as long as the middle one, which is entire and blunt. 

 Stamen-connective beak-like, slender, curved. Capsule oblong, red, 

 dehiscing, yellow inside. Seeds black. 



Luzon, Province of Benguet, Baguio, For. Bur. .'/886, 'i91.'/ Curran; Mount 

 Tonglon, Merrill '/S.'/.i: Province of Pampanga, Mount Abu, Bur. Sri. 198.1 Fox- 

 worthy, altitude 1,330 m. Xegros, Elmer 98 ',3. 



var. /?. Leaves more elliptic in outline; ligule and sheath densely 

 pubescent. Spike on a leafless peduncle from the rhizome. Peduncle 

 10 to 15 cm long, with distant tubular sheaths. 



LUZON, Province of Tayabas, Mount Banajao, Elmer 8133: Province of Pam- 

 panga, Mount Abu, Bur. Sci. 1991 Foxicorthy. One of the rarest gingers in this 

 locality, growing in loose soil in shaded ravines at 700 meters, inflorescence red 

 (Elmer) ; forested slopes in ravines at 1,360 meters (Foxworthy). 



This ginger seems to be allied to Z. officinale as much as to any other species, 

 and like it has the spike sometimes borne on the top of the leafy stem and also 

 on the rhizome like the majority of the species of the genus. 



