321 
Initiatory attempt to define the species of Hupycuivum, and settle their 
synonymy ; by DR. Wauticn, V.P. Royal and Linn. Soc. 
The genus Hedychium is exclusively East Indian, consisting mostly 
of exquisitely beautiful and sweetly fragrant plants, which flower in 
profusion during many months of the year, and especially during the 
wet season. "They delight in moist and shady mountain-valleys, from 
China, where Rumphius was told they grow wild, and the Malay islands 
and peninsula, where the first species was discovered by that inimit- 
able observer, and others were afterwards added; to 30? north lat. in 
Western Hindustan, where they are found at Mussuri and on the Suen 
Range, according to Royle. In the intermediate countries they are 
met with on the coast of Tenasserim, on the banks of the Irawaddy, in 
Assam, very profusely on the Kasia (or Kasiya) and Kachar ranges*, 
in Sikkim, and in Nipal; less numerously in Kamaon ; also in Malabar 
and on the NilgirriesT. Beyond their ornamental, horticultural uses, 
. for which they are eminently qualified, being scarcely exceeded by any 
of our garden and stove favourites, I am not aware of their possessing 
any marked medicinal or other virtues. Dr. Royle mentions, in his 
Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains, p. 885—a rich treasure, 
not to be met with elsewhere, of useful and important information, 
and of curious and successful research in matters of history and litera- 
ture connected with his subject—that a warm aromatic root, called 
Seer, Suttee, and Kupoor-kuchree, in the bazars of Northern India, is 
produced by H: spicatum, the Sidhuoul of Mussuri, and that it may 
perhaps be the Sitta ritte mentioned under the Lesser Galangal, by 
Sir W. Ainsliet. Rumphius, as well as Valentyn (probably from the 
py alge ; : : 
ot the Boden proe Suede al Oxford, My HHL. Wibon.The fest is de 
rived from the Sanscrita Kasa, being the tall wild Sugar-reed (Saccharum sponta- 
neum), so common on the plains and lower hills of Hindustan. The second name 
cannot be reduced to any Sanscrita word; Kachar is Hindi, and implies land lying 
along rivers, liable to inundation, and of easy irrigation. z 
ae word is of pure Sanscrita origin, and should be written Nilagiri when - 
mentions radix Hedychii spicati. No native names are given; but the drug is as- 
edychii spicati Dis antl 
VOL. V. 9T 
