HEDYCHIUM AURANTIACUM. 
MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
SECT. II. SCITAMINEE. 
Gey. Cuar.—Anther double, naked, attached at the back by a flexible ligament to the apex of the filament; 
filament grooved, embracing the style. 
Spec. CuHar.—Spike open, regular, flowers alternating in six rows; bractes cylindrical, acute, villous at the apex, 
2—3-florous ; filament twice the length of the lip; lip deeply separated into two lobes; leaves 
alternate, bifarious, sessile, narrow-lanceolate, mid-rib hairy. 
Syy.—H. coccineum (var. aurantiacum). Buchanan, ap. Sir J. E. Smith, in Rees’s New Cyclop. Wallich, Flor. Ind. 
vol. i. p. 82, in note. 
H. angustifolium. Curtis, Bot. Mag. No. 2078. 
DESCRIPTION. 
_ Roots tuberous, spreading horizontally ; stems erect, herbaceous, of a purplish colour when young; leaves 
bifarious, sessile, narrow-lanceolate, the mid-rib and apex villous, purplish on the under surface when young; 
sheathing of the leaves terminating in a very short pallid ligula or ocrea, embracing the stem; spike terminal, 
slightly declined, dense, regular, flowers alternating in three, and forming six erect rows on the rachis, which is 
hairy ; bractes cylindrical, 2—3-florous, formed of a broad, lanceolate, finely-pointed leaf, villous at the apex; 
inner bracte to each flower cuneate, membranous; calyx cylindrical, three-toothed, inflated, nearly as long as 
the tube of the corolla; exterior limb of the corolla in three equal, long, narrow, linear, reflected, tortuose segments ; 
inner limb of two equal, sub-elliptic narrow segments, opposite, expanding, the third segment or lip, standing on a 
long linear claw, and dividing into two distinct, ovate, intire, papilonaceous lobes, the whole flower a bright orange 
colour; filament slender, more than twice the length of the lip ; anther double, orange colour ; style rising between 
a pair of short orange coloured germinal processes, and terminating in a cup-like ciliated stigma. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
The H. aurantiacum is the plant observed by Dr. Buchanan (now Hamilton) as a variety of coccineum, differing 
in its denser spike, and orange-coloured flowers, and conjectured by Sir J. E. Smith to be a distinct species, which 
has proved to be the case, it having flowered annually for several years in the Botanic Garden at Liverpool, and 
always maintaining its peculiar characters. Although figured in Bot. Mag. 2078, under the name of H. angustifolium, 
the Editor appears to have been aware that this was the unnamed variety before referred to, and which we have 
been induced to distinguish by the name of aurantiacum. 
The present plant, which was sent to Liverpool by Dr. Wallich in 1819, is highly and delightfully scented, 
and has flowered in a much larger spike than the specimen here given, which was drawn August 11, 1822. 
REFERENCES. 
. Intire flower. 
2, Germen, processes, style and stigma. 
3. Outer bracte. 
4. 
5. Lip. 
Inner bracte. 
