24 MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Curcuma. 
of various leng th.—Spike tufted, 4 or 5 inches long, (so that its 
apex is elevated nearly a foot above the surface of the earth ;) covered 
with imb ricated, oblong, concave bractes, connected by the lower half 
of their inner margins to the backs of those immediately above, form- 
ing as many sacks, or pouches as there are bractes; the lower half 
of these are broad, shorter, scarcely tinged with red, containing each 
about three or four, beautiful, yellow, sessile flowers, which expand 
in succession, and are embraced laterally by their own proper, smaller, 
short, colourless bractes. The superior half of the large coloured 
. ones, which form the tufts, are generally sterile, and of a deeper crim- 
son, or purple colour, than those which contain llowers.— Calyz supe- 
rior; scarcely one third the length of the corol, irregularly. three- 
toothed, pellucid.—Corol fonnel-shaped. Tube alittle curved. Border 
double; exterior three-parted, the two lateral segments equal; the | 
third or upper one vaulted and crowned with as bulate | point ; colour 
a very faint yellow. - “Interior th cc-parted ; lower segment, or lip, 
‘proad, deep yellow, projecting, recurved, bifid ; ; upper or lateral. seg- 
ments obovate, equal, pale yellow, nearly as long as the lip.— Fila- 
ment short. Anther double, the lower end of each lobe terminating 
in a long, sharp, subulate spur.— Germ beneath, hairy, three-celled, 
with many ovula in each, attached to the inner "hngle of the cell. 
Style slender at the base, embraced by the two nectarial filaments. 
Stigma two-lobed, crowning the anther.— Capsule oval, smooth, of a 
pale straw-colour, thin and nearly pellucid; three-celled; but with- 
out any regular division into valves : when the seeds are ripe the elas- 
ticity of the segments of the arils bursts the vertex into various | Ör- 
tions, from whence the seeds are soon expelled .— Seed eral in 
each cell, arilled; shape various, but the most prevai 
Aril cut to the very base into several slender, unequ: e; 
segments, which afe' ‘united to the seed round ‘the umbilicus. In- 
teguments two ; exterior "'Spongy, with highij polished slippery, light- 
brown Mv int ;eous. Perisperm pure white, hard 
but friable, atid occupies the Iosta bell x of the seed. Vitellus clear- 
eh, But Mas of a tougher consistence than the albumen; it 
