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notions ; a favour which your generous offer induces 

 me to solicit, and which will lay me under infinite 

 obligations. I entreat and beseech you to grant 

 this my earnest request, thereby enabling me to 

 judge with precision of the nature of the specimens 

 I may have the satisfaction of presenting to you. 



Among the contents of the chest you will find a 

 number of Scitaminea, of which you will be glad to 

 hear. I have this very day the following species in 

 the fullest blossom in the garden : — Hedychium 

 coccineum,ISuch.,id. var. carneum mihi, both of them 

 inconceivably grand ; H.jlavum, Roxb. ; H. ellipti- 

 cu?n, Buch., a most superb species ; H. spicatum, 

 Buch., the flowers of which are most delightfully per- 

 fumedjlike the carnation and Echites caryophyllata ; 

 — all these are in profuse blossom with me, together 

 with H. coro?ia? , ium?md a?igustifolium,H. The name 

 of the last is not so well adapted, because there is a 

 more distinct character in the leaves, — their disti- 

 chous position, which would have at once afforded a 

 name and a specific difference. 



This species (angusiifoliujii) and coccineum are 

 very much alike in stature and inflorescence ; the 

 former differs chiefly in its more rigid and perfectly 

 distichous leaves. JRoscoea, so beautifully repre- 

 sented in your Exotic Botany, is also in flower, 

 which, however, are of a very pale blueish colour, 

 precisely like those of Kaempferia rotunda. I have 

 a vast number of plants of every individual species 

 above mentioned, of which, immediately after the 

 rains, I shall do myself the pleasure to send you a 

 share. There are likewise in your chest of speci- 



