ZINGIBERACEJE. 



Guinea, near Sierra Leone. (Melligetta or Malagueta Pepper. 

 Offic.) 



Rhizoma perennial, woody, creeping horizontally. Stems erect, 

 simple, slender, 3 feet high, leafy, but destitute of flowers. Leaves 

 numerous, crowded, 2-ranked, alternate, a span long and an inch broad, 

 lanceolate, or slightly ovate, with a long taper point, entire, smooth, 

 single-ribbed, striated with innumerable oblique veins. Their flavour 

 is slightly aromatic, after having been dried twenty years. Flower- 

 stalks radical, solitary, an inch or two in length, ascending, clothed with 

 numerous, close, sheathing bracteas, all abrupt, ribbed, somewhat hairy 

 and fringed; the lower ones very short; the upper gradually much 

 longer. Of the parts of the flower nothing can be made out from our 

 specimens. Capsule 1^ inch long, \ an inch in diameter, oblong, 

 bluntly triangular, scarcely ovate, beaked, of a dark reddish-brown, 

 ribbed, coriaceous, rough with minute deciduous bristly hairs. When 

 broken it is very powerfully aromatic, even after being kept twenty 

 years, with a peculiar pepper-like flavour, rather too strong to be agree- 

 able. Seeds numerous, enveloped in membranes formed of the dried 

 pulp, roundish or somewhat angular, of a shining golden brown, 

 minutely rough or granulated, extremely aromatic, hot and acrid. Smith. 

 Properties of the seeds the same as those of other Amoma ; they 

 are powerfully aromatic, stimulant and cordial. 



1198. A. grandiflorum Smith Exot. Bot. 2. t. 111. Rees 

 Cyclop, suppl. No. 6. Sierra Leone. 



Ligula cloven, smooth. Spikes capitate. Bracts elliptical, shorter 

 than the fruit; lower ones distant. Intermediate lobe of filament 

 entire. Capsule oblong, bluntly triangular, minutely hispid. Seeds 

 ovate. Seeds differ from those of A. grana paradisi in being grey or 

 lead-coloured, much less polished, with a totally different flavour, 

 resembling that of camphor, which they equal in warmth and pungency. 

 As a stimulant or cordial, these seeds appear equal to any Cardamoms 

 whatever. Smith. 



ELETTARIA. 



The character the same as that of Amomum but the tube of 

 the corolla filiform and the anther naked. JBlume. 



1 1 99. E. Cardamomum Maton in act. linn. x. 254. Blume 

 enum. i. 51. N. and E. handb. i. 250. pi. med. t. 66. Amo- 

 mum repens Sonnerat it. ii. 240. t. 136. Amomum Cardamo- 

 mum White in act. linn. x. 230. t. 4. 5. Alpinia repens Smith 

 inact linn. viii. 353. Alpinia Cardamomum Rose, monandr.pl. 38. 

 Roxb.fi. ind. i. 70. (Rheede mal. xi. t. 4 and 5.) Moun- 

 tainous parts of the coast of Malabar. (True Cardamom. ) 



Rhizoma with numerous fleshy fibres. Stems perennial, erect, 

 smooth, jointed, enveloped in the spongy sheaths of the leaves ; from 

 6 to 9 feet high. Leaves bifarious, subsessile on their sheaths, lanceo- 

 late, fine-pointed, somewhat villous above, sericeous underneath, entire, 

 from 1 to 2 feet long. Sheaths slightly villous, with a rounded ligula 

 rising above the mouth. Scapes several (3 or 4) from the base of the 

 stems, prostrate, flexuose, jointed, branched, from 1 to 2 feet long. 

 Branches or racemes alternate, one from each joint of the scape, sub- 



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