LONGOUZE. 113 



Paris Exhibition of 1867. When it flowered, in June last, I was 1872 - 

 instantly struck with its perfect resemblance to the West- Resemblance 

 African A. Danielli, Hook, f.; and a careful comparison con- to A- 

 vinced me of the identity of the two species. 



Of the West- African plant I have specimens from Sierra 

 Leone, Monrovia, Grand Bassa, Cape Palmas, Akassa, Old 

 Calabar, the islands of Fernando Po and St Thomas, and the 

 river Gaboon. It varies in the colour of the flower, which is 

 sometimes of a uniform chrome-yellow, sometimes crimson, with 

 the labellum of a yellow more or less pale, and sometimes, again, 

 entirely crimson ; but the shape of the flower, which is highly African plant, 

 characteristic, presents but little variation. The scape is either 

 short or long (that is, from three to eight inches, or more), and 

 varies greatly in the number of fruits which it bears. The fruits 

 are moderately uniform in shape and size ; they are filled with 

 an acidulous pulp, in which are lodged numerous oblong polished 

 brown seeds. Neither the fruit, nor foliage, nor the two com- 

 bined afford positive characters for recognition of the species : 



The synonymy of the plant may be given thus : Synonyms. 



Amomum angustifolium, Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes Orient- 

 ales et a la Chine, ii. 242, tab. 137 ; Roxburgh, Flora Ind., ed. 

 Carey, i. 39. 



A. nemorosum, Bojer, Hort. Mauritianus (1837), p. 327. 



A. Danielli, Hook, f., Hooker's Journ. of Bot. iv. (1852) 129, 

 tab. 5 (sub. nom. A. Afzelii) ; Bot. Mag. tab. 4764. 



A. Clusii (? Smith in Rees Cyclopaedia (Addenda), xxxix.); Bot. 

 Mag. tab. 5250. 



THE MADAGASCAR CARDAMOM, OR LONGOUZE. 1 



(Longouze, Madagascar-Cardamomen, von Amomum 

 angustifolium, Sonnerat.) 



IN several works on Materia Medica published within the 

 last fifty years, 2 mention is made of a Madagascar Cardamom 



1 Read at the Evening Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great 

 Britain, February 7, 1872. 



8 Fee, Cours d'Hist. Nat. Pharmaceutique, I. (1828) 361 ; Guibourt, Hist, 

 des Drog. II. (1849) 216 ; Martin?, Encyldopcidie d. Med. u. pharm. 



