442 SCITAMINEM 



a whitisli integument, each cell or lobe containing usually two, 

 placed one above tlie other; these are ash-coloured, flattish, 

 and somewhat 3-angled, finely striated, and have a pungent 

 taste like that of the root. {For figure, see Science Papers, 



p. 107.) 



The root is readily distinguished from that of A. offlcinarum 

 by its larger size, feebler odour and taste^ orange-brown exterior 

 and yellowish-white interior. The statistics of Indian commerce 

 do not enable us to distinguish this drug from China galangal. 



It is valued in Bombay at about Rs. 50 per candy of 7 cwts. 

 Galangal cardamoms are not found in Indian commerce- 

 In the Kew Bulletin for January 1891 (p. 5) an interesting 

 account is given of the identification of the plant yielding the 

 rhizome employed to make the well-known Chinese preserved 

 ginger. As long ago as 1878, Dr. E. Percival Wright, of 

 Trinity College, Dublin, called the attention of Mr. Thiselton 

 Dyer to the fact that the preserved ginger has very much 

 larger rhizomes than Zi^igiher officinale, and that it was quite 

 improbable that it was the produce of that plant. The 

 difficult}^ in identifying the plant arose from the fact that, 

 like many others cultivated for the root or tuber, it rarely 

 flowers. The first flowering plant was sent to Kew from 

 Jamaica by Mr. Harris, the iSuperintendent of the Hope Garden 

 there. During the past year the plant has flowered both 

 at Dominica in the West Indies and in the Botanic Garden 

 at Hongkong. Mr. 0. Ford^ the Director of the Botanic 

 Garden at Hongkong, has identified the plant as Alpinia 

 galanga, the source of the greater or Java galangal root of 

 comnierce. Mr. Watson, of Kew, appears to have been 

 the first to suggest that the Chinese ginger plant is probably a 

 species of Alpinia, and possibly identical with the Siam ginger 

 plant, which was described by Sir J. D. Hooker in the Botanical 

 Magazine (tab. 6946) in 1887 as a new species, under the name 

 of Alpinia zingiherina. Mr. J. G. Baker, in working up the 

 Scitaminea) for the ' Flora of British India,' arrived at the 

 conclusion that it. is not distinct from the Alpinia galanga, 



