COSTUS. 
This is one of ‘the most interesting and singular, and at the same time one of the most beautiful 
genera of ithe Scitaminean tribe, although it is only of late that it has been sufficiently investigated and 
understood. In fact, for a long course of years the names of Costus, Alpinia, and Amomum, were interchanged 
with each other, without any certain characters by which they might be distinguished; and it is only 
since ‘these characters have been explained, and confirmed by numerous species, recently discovered, that we 
have been enabled to place this genus in its proper light, and to exhibit it in the splendour of which it 
admits. In the first edition of the Hortus Kewensis, only one species, the Costus Arahicus, is mentioned, 
as a native of both Indies, cultivated by Mr. P. Miller, in 1752. In the second edition of the same 
work (1810) three species are mentioned, viz. Speciosus, Arabicus, and Spicatus, the first of these introduced 
by Sir Joseph Banks, after whom it was named Banksia, by Retz. Fas. 3. 75. The Arabicus is the 
Costus glabratus of Swartz. The Spicatus is the Hellenia grandiflora of Retzius, and is figured by 
Jacquin in his early work on American Plants, tab. i. as Alpinia Spicata, but will be found in 
the present work as Costus Spicatus, and these three species are repeated by Wildenow. Of this genus a 
small portion only have been supplied from the east. Neither the list of Monandrian plants by Dr. Roxburgh 
in the xi. vol. of Asiatic Researches, nor his Flora Indica contain more than one species, the C. Speciosus ; 
whilst the discoveries made by Plumier upwards of a century ago, on the Continent and in the Islands 
of America, furnish us with numerous and valuable figures of this genus, which it is greatly to be regretted 
have not hitherto been published, except so far as Jacquin has inserted a few of them in his Fragmenta. 
The Costus Arabicus of Aublet, v. i. p. 2. is the Alpinia Spicata of Jacquin, and is the Costus Spicatus, 
given in the present work. The other species of Aublet are all repeated from Plumier. 
In the Syst. Veg. of Roemer and Schultes we find enumerated thirteen species of Costus, viz.— 
1. Speciosus. 8. Anachizri. 
2. Arabicus. 9. Niveo-purpureus. 
3. Spicatus, 10. Villosissimus, 
4. Comosus. 11. Scaber. 
5. Spiralis. 12, Levis. 
6. Cernuus. 13. Argenteus. 
7. Cylindricus. 
Of these the Speciosus, Arabicus, and Spicatus, are before noticed; Comosus and Cernuus are the 
Cylindricus of the present work; Spiralis is here given under that name; Cylindricus, Anachiri, Niveo- 
purpureus and Villosissimus, are adopted from Plumier. Scaber, Levis, and Argenteus, are from the Flora 
Peruv. of Ruiz and Pavon. Professor Sprengel has given 12 species, omitting the Anachiri, Niveo-purpureus 
and Villosissimus, of Roemer and Schultes, substituting the specific name of Glabratus for that of Arabicus, 
adding also Secundus and Linearis from the Flora Indica of Dr. Roxburgh ;_ where, however, those plants 
are given as Keempferias. 
Mr. Brown has remarked that Costus may be known at first sight, even without the fructification, from 
all other Scitaminew, by the sheathing above the insertion of the leaf called the verea. Prodr. p. 308. 
But the most certain character when the plant is in flower, is perhaps found in the style and stigma; the 
former of which is not supported at the base by two hornlets or glands, as is the case with all einen 
true Scitamineze; but instead thereof is furnished at the extremity of the style, at the back of the stigma, 
with two small blunt lobes; which probably answer the same purpose in Costus, as the hornlets do in other 
Scitaminean Plants. 
With respect to the species, they all agree in having a cylindrical ascending spiral stem, and alternate 
leaves, with short petioles, sheathing the stems at each joint by a close ligament or ocrea, which in some 
