ALPINIA. 
Of this very elegant and diversified genus, the most full and particular account hitherto known, 
is that given by Sir J. E. Smith, in the Supplement to Rees’s Cyclopedia, (Art. Alpinia.) It was 
originally proposed by Plumier in honour of Prosper Alpinus, the celebrated author of a work on Exotic 
Plants, published in 1629, and was afterwards adopted by Linneus. It is known from all the other 
genera by various particulars, but is sufficiently discriminated ‘by its strong erect filament, supporting 
in front at the apex a large double anther, which it completely covers at the back, but does not 
extend beyond. By a strict attention to this circumstance, it will not be found difficult to divest this 
genus of many plants which have formerly been confounded with it, and to combine together, by a truly 
natural distinction, as beautiful a group as the tribe of Monandrian Plants can supply. 
Of this species Sir J. E. Smith has enumerated 17, seven of which will be found figured and 
described in the present work. It was also my intention to have given a specimen of the <A. malaccensis, 
figured by Rumphius and also in Bot. Reg. No. 328; with which view I had requested my late highly 
esteemed and respected friend Walter Fawkes, Esq. of Farnley, in Yorkshire, to furnish me with 
a plant from his conservatory,—a request with which he cheerfully complied, and by which I was 
enabled in a short time to supply, not only the Liverpool Botanic Garden, but several of my friends 
with specimens; but although many of these have grown freely, and are now upwards of six feet high, 
they have none of them yet produced their flowers,—a disappointment which I the more regret, as this 
plant is described by Dr. Roxburgh, (Asiatic Researches, vol. xi. p. 354.) as being the “most stately and 
most beautiful of our Scitaminean Plants; the flowers particularly . large, with the bractes and_ exterior 
border of the corolla, pure, smooth, lucid white, and the large lip variegated with crimson and _ yellow.” 
I am fortunate, however, in being able to add to this genus, the two fine species A. auriculata, and 
A. magnifica, the latter of which I regard as a surprising instance of the varieties assumed by nature in 
the formation of genera, and as a decisive proof, that for true generic distinctions, we must rely alone 
upon the organs of fructification. 
Since the publication of the portion of my work which contained the figure of the Alpinia Magnifica, 
I have received through the kindness of my friend Dr. Hooker, a drawing of the root, and of the 
capsule and seed, (the scape of which is about an inch in diameter, and six feet high,) made by Mr. 
Telfair at the Mauritius, but too late to be introduced into the present publication. I trust, however, Dr. 
Hooker will avail himself of some early opportunity of laying these curious figures before the public, in 
some of his interesting publications, and will enter into the consideration of the question proposed by 
Mr. Boyer, (Professor of Botany, at the New College in the Mauritius,) who dissected the plant, and 
who thinks that between the seeds of this plant and the other species of dAlpinia, there are important 
differences; an inquiry into which I cannot at present enter. 
Of the twelve species of Alpinia enumerated in the Flora Indica, four have a radical inflorescence, 
and differ greatly from Alpinia in their organs of fructification, for which latter reason I consider them as 
species of Renealmia. See the foregoing description of the genus Renealmia. 
