Amomum. MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA. ar 
form apex, forming uncommonly deep pouches for the small yellow 
Jlowers. . 
AMOMUM. Schreb. gen. plant. N. 3 
Corolla with the interior border unilabiate. Auther double, surs 
mounted with an entire, or lobate crest. Capsule three-celled, three- 
valved. Seeds many, ariiled... Embryo sinple, and furnished with 
both perisperm, and vitellus. - 
fore panier die sei. tere Willd. i. 8. | 
j Leaves short-petioled, lanceolar. - Spikes half. immersed in the 
earth, loosely imbricated with villous, lanceolate, acute, tite Bowered 
bractes. Lip with the anterior margin three-lobed. Crest three-lol 
Cardamomum minus. Rumph. amb. 5. p; 359. t. 65. f. dcus 
A native of Sumatra, and other islands to the eastward of the Bay ` 
of Bengal, and sent by Dr. Charles Campbell from Bencoo/en, to 
the Botanic Garden at Calcutta, where it blossoms in April. 
Root perenuial, creeping under the surface of tbe soil, like that of 
ginger ; butsmaller, less fleshy, more ligneous, and white ; from which 
descend, aud spread, many fleshy fibres.—Stems about biennial, 
several rising obliquely to the height of from two to.four ivet, 
about as thick as a stout ratan, invested in the smooth, deep green 
sheaths of the leaves.— Leaves alternate, bifarious, short-petioled 
on their smooth stem-clasping sheaths ; from broad-lanceolaie be 
low, to narrow-lanceolate at top, entire aud smooth ou both sides ; 
point long, and very. fine ; length from six to twelve. inches — Spikes 
radical, sessile, oblong, appearing amongst the stems, half immersed 
in the earth, loosely imbricated with one-fowered, lanceolate, acute, 
villous, nervous, scariose, ash-coloured bractes ; when old their brit- 
tle tops are often broken off.—Bractes. Besides the exterior one- 
flowered ones, just mentioned, there is an inner, striated, downy, 
scariose, two-toothed, tubular one, (which I have sometimes consi- 
dered an exterior and inferior calyx, and which Koenig som etir 
called an àavolucre,) inserted round the base of the germ.—2 
