5. Hedychium.] 156. ZINGIBERACE^. 



rows, lanceolate villous. Flowers scarlet or brick-red or flesh-coloured, 

 2 • 5-3" long. Petals twisted narrowly linear. Staminodes lanceolate. 

 Lip suborbicular split into 2 ovate-oblong or irregularly sub-ovate 

 obtuse lobes, clawed. 



Baragai Hill (Ranchi Ghats), " elev. 4000 ft.,"* Wood. It is a plant of the 

 Himalaya. 



6. AMOMUM, L, 



Herbaceous leafy stem often very tall, rootstock rhizomatous. 

 Leaves usually narrow, distichous. Flowers in dense capitate spikes 

 produced direct from the rootstock, with imbricate bracts. Calyx 

 cylindric, 3-dentate. Corolla-tube with oblong or linear-oblong 

 segments, upper often broader and more convex. Lateral staminodes 

 reduced to minute teeth or obsolete. Lip broad or linguiform. 

 Filament short, arcuate ; anther-cells divaricate, sometimes hairy 

 and often with a petaloid crest. Ovary 3-celled. Style filiform, 

 stigma small and globose or larger and gibbous dorsally. Ovules 

 many, superposed. Fruit indehiscent or irregularly dehiscent, 

 sometimes beaked, Avinged or echinate. Seeds globose or truncate. 



A. Anther crested. Lip broad : — 



Anther-crest ■ 2.5- • 3" wide, entire. Capsule winged . .1. dealbatum. 

 Anther-crest large, 3-fid. Capsiile 3-gonous , . .2. aromaticum. 



B. Anther not crested. Lip narrow 3. linguiforme. 



1. A. dealbatum, Roxb. Paro, K. 



A very large herb with tuberous rootstock and leafy stems 5-7 ft. 

 high with sheathing distichous oblong-lanceolate leaves 2-3-5 ft. 

 long and 4-6" broad, softly pubescent or glabrous beneath. Flowers 

 2" long (from tip of ovary to tip of lip), in dense spikes 2-3" long and 

 broad on a short stout peduncle sometimes 3" or in fruit 4", densely 

 covered with bracts when young. Lip 1 • 5" long by • 75" wide with 

 crisped margins or 1 • 1" Avide (in the Puri specimen), a band of yelloAv 

 or red down its centre and sometimes also radiating red veins. Crest 

 subquadrate -25- -3" wide. Fruit oblong 1-6" long with 9 crenulate 

 wings. 



Purneah ! Santa] Parg. ! Singbhum, in Avatery shady places ! Parasnath ! 

 Mais of Puri, frequent ! FI. April-July. Fr. Aug.-Sept. Leafy stem apparently 

 persists se\'eral years. 



The leaves of the Singbhum plant are glabrous. The peduncle is naked in 

 fruit. Whole length of flOAvers (including hypanthium) 2-5". Calyx -75-1" 

 minutely pubescent. 



2. A. aromaticum, Eoxb. Morung-elaichi, Beng. ; Jalpaiguri Car- 



damom. 

 Stems in tufts from the rhizome, 2-3 ft. high. Spike globose 1 • 25- 

 1*5" with the peduncle subterranean (but somewhat elongating in 

 fruit) with imbricating sheathing bracts. Floral bracts oblong, ribbed, 

 mucronate. Flowers pale yellow. Ovary sericeous. Calyx -7- -8" 

 long, villous, 3-toothed. Corolla-tube 1" villous, petals nearly as 

 Jong, sometimes white tinged Avith brown, sublanceolate, obtuse 



* I think the correct elev. is 3607 ft. 

 1140 



