SCITAMINBM 44I 



History, Uses, &;C. — The great Galangal is known in 



China by the same names as the lesser Galangal, and does not 

 appear to have been distinguished from the latter drug by the 

 Greeks, Arabs or Persians, Hanbury [Science Pa^^ers, p, 373) 

 remarks that Garcia D'Orta was the first writer to point out 

 (1563) that there are two kinds of Galangal — the one, as he 

 says, of smaller size and more potent virtues, brought from 

 China, the other, a thicker and less aromatic rhizome, produced 

 in Java. Loureiro describes the plant which produces it under 

 the name of Amomiim Galanga^ and gives Cao Learn Kiam as its 

 name in Cochin-China. Roxburgh (i., 60) fully describes the 

 plant grown in Calcutta from roots sent io him by Dr. Charles 

 Campbell from Bencoolen, and quotes a note by Mr. Colebrooke 

 to the effect that the roots are the Kulanjana of the Eaja 

 Nirghanta, and the Sughanda-vacha and Malabari-vacha of the 

 Bhavaprakasha. From the latter name it appears that the 

 Hindus regard the plant as a native of Malabar or of Western 

 India ; the correctness of this opinion has been confirmed by 

 Dalzell and Gibson, who found it growing truly wild upon the 

 Wagh Dongar or "tiger hill" in the Southern Concan. {Bomb, 

 FLy p. 274.) The root of the Indian plant does not, however, 

 appear to have been collected for commercial purposes until a 

 comparatively recent date, which has given rise to the supposi- 

 tion that the plant is not a native of India. At the present 

 time it is cultivated both in Malabar and Bengal. 



The fruits of A. galanga furnish the Galanga Cardamom. In 

 the fresh state they are of the size of a small cherry, obovate, 

 smooth, and of a deep orange-red colour. Hanbury {Science 

 Paj}en, p. 252) describes the dried fruit [Kaon-leang-lcemg-taze, 

 Chinese) as about half an inch in length, of an oblong form, 

 somewhat constricted in the middle, or occasionally pear- 

 shaped ; some obscurely 3-sided. Each fruit prominently 

 crowned with the remains of the calyx; in a few the lower 

 extremity still attached to a slender pedicel. Most of the 

 capsules much shrivelled on the outside, a few plump and 

 smooth. Pericarp from pale to deep reddish-brown, glabrous, 

 thin. Seeds united in a 3-lobcd mass, completely invented in 



III.-56 



