RENEALMIA. 
It is with great satisfaction that we now find ourselves enabled to remove some considerable difficulties 
which have hitherto attended the definition and arrangement of a very important portion of the tribe of 
Scitaminean Plants, and to restore the genus Renealmia to its proper station, of which it has been so 
long deprived. Some account of the establishment of this genus by Linnaeus, will be found in the 
observations on the ensuing figure of Renealmia exaltata, the type on which it was founded. The near 
resemblance of this plant to Alpinia, induced several Botanists to consider it as a species of that genus, 
and some observations on that subject, expressing a doubt respecting it, may be found in Transactions of 
Lin. Soc. vol. viii. p. 344. Subsequent information and more perfect specimens, which will be detailed in 
the ensuing observations on the figure of Renealmia eaaltata, have removed all doubts on this head; and 
it now appears that Linnzeus was perfectly correct in considering this as a separate genus, distinctly 
characterised from every other of the Scitaminean tribe. The generic distinctions between Rencalmia and 
Alpinia are sufficiently marked by the anther, which in Renealmia, is naked both at the front and back, 
and is closely attached at the back by a short flexible ligament to the faux of the corolla, at the base 
of the middle segment of the outer limb; whilst in Alpinia, the anther is placed on the front of a strong, 
clavate, proper filament, which elevates it considerably beyond the tube of the flower, and entirely covers 
it at the back; an essential difference also appears in the stigma, as our figures and descriptions will 
fully show. It may also be observed that all the species of Renealmia exhibit a peculiar involucrum or 
perianth of one leaf, seated below the germen, divided at the apex into two, three, or four sections, 
according to the various species, and covering the germen and the greater part of the superior calyx. 
To this may be added, that the seeds of the Renealmia, according to their different kinds, possess a 
powerful aroma of considerable use both in medicine and for domestic purposes, which is not the case 
with Alpinia; and that even with regard to the Renealmia of the Western world, the seeds have long ago 
been described as having the taste of Cardamom. 
I have no hesitation in expressing my opinion that this genus will be found, on further inquiry, to 
include several other species of the greatest importance both in the Eastern and Western world. In 
particular, I have little doubt from what I have seen of the figures of Marcgrave and Plumier, who have 
represented it under the name of Paco Seroca, that the plant now known by the name of Alpinia occidentalis, 
will fall under this description; but the fullest account will be found in the supplement to Rees’s Cyclop. by 
Sir James Ed. Smith, under the title of Alpinia, where all that is yet known of this plant is detailed with 
many judicious observations upon it. We have also reason to believe that other plants at present described 
by different authors, as species of Alpinia, under the names of 4. 7 » jamaicensis, aromatica, 8c. 
will be found on further examination to belong to Renealmia. The flowers of R. occidentalis, of which 
we have before us a spike preserved in spirits, are unilateral, or, as expressed by Sir J. E. Smith, ail 
turned upwards, and the capsules, globose; but we have also specimens of seeds, both dried and in spirits, 
in which the spike is compound, the capsules are promiscuous and ovate, and which evidently indicate 
other species different from Occidentalis, and which remain to be further described. 
To the same genus (Renealmia) I should also refer the plants given in Dr. Roxburgh’s Flora Ind. 
(vol. i. p. 68) as radical flowering Alpinias, which appear from the figures of them in Corom. Plants, to 
have a large naked anther, placed at the apex, of a strong erect filament, as in Alpinia, but in the faux 
or mouth of the corolla, and attached by a short ligament, or process, to the back or middle section of 
the outer limb; they are also characterised by the large double calyx, one below, and the other above 
the germen. 
