88 ODOKOGKAPHIA. 



spiral vessels, most numerous at the junction of the central and 

 cortical portions of the rhizome. 



The drug is said to reach Bombay from Cawnpore. Value, 4 to 

 5 Es. per maund of 41 pounds. 



Curcuma rubescens Eoxb.* This beautiful species is a 

 native of Bengal. Its small, bright yellow, fragrant flowers appear 

 in April and May, soon after the appearance of the leaves, and 

 decay about the beginning of the cool season, in Xovember. Every 

 part of the plant has a strong, but pleasant aromatic scent when 

 bruised, particularly the root. The root consists of several erect, 

 solid, conical, pale straw or pearl coloured powerfully aromatic 

 bulbs, which gave support to the former year's foliage, and are 

 strongly marked with the circular scars thereof; from their 

 opposite sides the scapes and stems of the succeeding year spring, 

 which form similar new bulbs when those of the former year 

 decay ; but during their existence, there issues round their lower 

 half, a number of strong fleshy fibres, many of which end in ovate 

 or sub-cylindrical, pale white, slightly aromatic tubers, which also 

 perish with the original parent bulb. The stems are, as in the 

 other species, no other than the united sheaths of the leaves, which 

 like them, decay annually about the month of October and appear 

 again when the flowers begin to perish in April. The leaves are 

 bifarious (six or eight of them forming the above-mentioned stems, 

 of about three or four feet in height, leaves included), petioled on 

 their sheathing base, broad-lanceolate, cuspidate, smooth, strongly 

 marked with parallel veins ; of a uniform dark green, with the 

 nerves or ribs red ; they are from twelve to twenty-four inches 

 long, by five or six broad ; their petioles and sheaths are channelled, 

 smooth, and of a deep red colour ; a projecting process in the inside 

 marks, in all this natural order, the limit of the sheath and the 

 beginning of the petiole. The scape is radical, lateral, cylindric, 

 about six inches long, invested in small, dark, reddish sheaths. 

 The spike is tufted, five or six inches long, erect. The coma is less 

 deeply coloured than in Zerumbet. The bractes or scales of the 

 spike are exactly as in the other species, each embracing four or five 

 flowers which expand in succession. The flowers are rather longer 

 than their bractes. The tube of the corolla is slender, its mouth 

 completely shut with three villous, yellow glands. 



* Flor. Ind. Serampore Ed. i., p. 28; and As. Kes., xi., p. 336. 



