ZINGIBERACEAE 155 
a nonstoloniferous species, native of India, has been cultivated in Manila 
for ornamental purposes, but has not persisted. Musa coccinea Andr. 
of southern China, a small slender species with erect inflorescence and 
few-flowered red bracts has also been introduced’ and cultivated for or- 
nament, but has not persisted in Manila. 
2. RAVENALA Adanson 
Tall trees, with cylindric trunks, the leaves large, oblong, long-petioled, 
distichous, disposed in one plane in the form of a fan at the top of the 
trunk. Inflorescence axillary, distichous, compound, bracteate, the bracts 
spathe-like, many flowered. Flowers perfect. Sepals 3, free, long, narrow, 
acuminate. Petals 3, the exterior one shorter than the others, narrow, 
the lateral two similar to the sepals. Stamens 5, slightly shorter than 
the petals. Ovary 3-celled, many-ovuled. Capsule ovoid, somewhat 3- 
angled, 3-valved. (From its native Madagascar name.) 
Species 2, one in Madagascar and 1 in tropical South America, the 
former now widely distributed in cultivation. 
*1, R. MADAGASCARIENSIS Sonn. Traveller’s Tree. 
Trunk erect, cylindric, woody, marked with scars of fallen leaves, up 
to 10 m in height. Leaves oblong, the blades 1.5 to 3 m long, shorter than 
the petioles, the petioles stout, imbricated in one plane. Inflorescence in 
the leaf-axils, about 12 spathes or bracts in each inflorescence. Flowers 
yellow. 
Not uncommon in cultivation, introduced, rarely flowering here. Its 
common English name is derived from the fact that travelers in Mada- 
gascar secure good drinking water from the large cells of the petioles. 
Other representatives of this family, such as Strelitzia reginae Banks 
from South Africa, and one or two species of Heliconia from tropical 
America, are of such recent introduction here that they are at present very 
rare in gardens and have not been included. 
29. ZINGIBERACEAE? (GINGER OR LUYA FAMILY) 
Slender or coarse, often aromatic herbs from fleshy rootstocks, the stems 
simple. Leaves simple, radical or cauline, usually distichous, sometimes 
spirally arranged, small to large, closely pinnately veined from the midrib, 
the sheaths usually present, ligule present or absent. Flowers small to 
large, irregular, perfect, solitary, spicate, racemose, or panicled, often in 
dense cone-like heads, bracts and often bracteoles present. Calyx tubular 
or spathe-like, 3-toothed or lobed, produced above the ovary. Corolla-tube 
long or short, the limb 3-partite. Perfect stamen 1, one or more petaloid 
staminodes usually present, the staminodes often large and showy, some- 
times small and inconspicuous or wanting. Ovary inferior, 1- to 3-celled; 
style usually slender; ovules many. Fruit a loculicidally 3-valved, mem- 
branaceous, coriaceous, or fleshy capsule, sometimes indehiscent, crowned by 
the remains of the perianth. Seeds numerous, arillate or not, small. 
. Genera about 45, species over 800, in the tropics of both hemispheres, 
about 16 genera and 65 species in the Philippines. 


*For a consideration of the Philippine species see Ridley, H. N., “The 
Scitamineae of the Philippines.” Philip. Journ. Sci. 4 (1909) Bot. 155-199. 
