38 _. MONANDRIA MONOGYNTA, Amomum, 
. white ; from which descend, and spread, many fleshy ‘fibres. 
Stems about biennial, several rising obliquely to the height of 
from two to four feet, about as thick as a stout ratan, invested 
in the smooth, deep green sheaths of the leaves. Leaves al- 
ternate, bifarious, short-petioled on their smooth stem-clasp- 
ing sheaths ; from broad-lanceolate below, to narrow-lanceo~ _ 
late at top, entire and smooth on both sides; point long, and — 
very fine; from six to twelve inches long. — Spikes radical, 
sessile, dblbing) appearing amongst the stems, half immersed 
in the earth, loosely imbricated with one-flowered, lanceolate, 
acute, villous, nervous, scariose, ash-coloured bractes ; when 
old their brittle tops are often broken off. Bractes ; besides 
the exterior one-flowered ones, just mentioned, there is an 
imer, striated, downy, scariose, two-toothed, tubular one, 
éwhich I have sometimes considered an exterior and inferior 
calyx, and which Kénig sometimes called an involucre,) in- 
serted round the base of the germ. Flowers opening in suc- 
cession, and not very conspicuous. Calyx clavate, tubular, 
downy, three-toothed, length of the tube of the corol. Tube 
of the corol, slender, and slightly ineurved. Exterior border 
of three'subequal pellucid divisions. Zip, or inner border, 
rather longer than the exterior great border, somewhat three- 
lobed, with a crenate, curled margin ; middle lobe yellow, with 
two rosy lines leading up to it from the mouth of the tube. Bi 
lament searcely half solong as.the border of the coro 
-ed over the mouth of the tube, There Ww chatlaradinlate 
horn on each side of the base of the fitament, and nearly its 
length. Anther double, large, fleshy, with a large, three-lob- 
ed, concave crest; infundibuliform stigma rising through a 
deep groove between the two polleniferous lobes. Germ be- 
neath, downy, and crowned with the two nectarial scales, 
within the base of the tube of the corol; in this 2 Ro same: 
‘are short, and truncated, 
Obs. The seeds are to the taste beetle aromatic, “ 
are sed by “ctr as a canning om shone — k 
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