368 



LXVIII.-HEDYCHIUM CORONARIUM AND 



ALLIED SPECIES. 



W. B. TUPailLL. 



(With Plates.) 



i 



paper-making* ivave m 



Iledychiam as a source of material lor ^-.^ ^ 



it particularly desirable tliat a clear uuderstandmg of the exact 

 botanical position of the plants experimented with fihould be 

 obtained. The species dealt Avith in the present paper are all 

 closely allied to one another, and the extreme difficulty experi- 

 enced in dealing with dried specimens had resulted m great ^n- 

 fusion of names and the sorting together of distinct forms. Ihe 

 latest moi?ofrraph of Hedychium is that by K. Schumann m 



- - - -^ ^ - -" ^ -"'^' but it adds little to 



Two older w^orlis 



E 



lUTn 



dealing with the genus must be mentioned, the one, Koscoe s 



Monand 



many 



species with corresponding descriptions in English, the other, 



■ ■ '^ ^ tho species of Hedychium," was 



iblished in the Kew Journal of Botany, V., ^ 

 ntains Latin diagnoses of 23 species with full lists of synonyms. 

 It is proposed here to enumerate those species which have been 

 nsidered by various authors to be varieties of K. coronarium and 

 ffive brieflv the most imrortant characters of each, but mention 



must first be made of K 



most 



tributed and commonly cultivated species of K 



described by Koenig 



1783, and has the 



following characters which distinguish it from other species of the 

 genus : bracts large, coriaceous, closely imb * ■ ^ '* * - 



mm 



from 



flowers which arise in succession; palyx tubular, split on one side, 

 less than half the length of the corolla-tube, glabrous ; corolla-tube 

 6-8 cm. long, cylindrical; corolla-segments 3, linear-lanceolate^ 

 e^ual, declined ; lip large, broad, abruptly narrowed at the base, 

 divided — but generally not deeply— into two elliptic-ovate lobes 

 which are sometimes further lobed, pure white or slightly yellow 

 in the lower part; lateral staminodes oblong- or ovate-elliptic, pure 

 white or yellowish in the lower part; filament with the anther 

 isliorter than^ the lip, white or yellowish; the inferior ovary 

 glabrous or slightly or densely hairy in the flowering stage. This 

 plant is found wild or naturalized in most tropical countries. 

 Good figures are to be found of it in : Roscoe, Monandr. PL t. 51 ; 

 Bot, Mag., t. 708; Smith, Exotic Plants, ii., t. 107. 



The U. maxivium of Eoscoe, Monandr. PL, t. 52, is probably a 

 variety of //. coronarium, distinguished by having broader leaves, 

 distinctly ciliated bracts, large flowers, the lateral staminodes 

 frequently with a lobe or tongue projecting from the centre, the 



"" "- riged with pink, and the ovary and calyx densely pubes- 



• See Kew Bulletin, 1912, p. 373; 1914, pp. 165, 193. 



