ALPINIA MUTICA. 
MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
SECT. Il. SCITAMINER. 
Gey. Cuar.—Anth g 
er double, embracing the style; filament simple, erect, not extending beyond the anther; inner 
border of the corolla unilabiate ; capsule three-celled 
3; seeds arilled 
Sprc. Crar.—Spike terminal, compound, 
slightly declined ; lip obscurely three-lobed, bifid, spurless, with two 
hairy glands at the base ; leaves short-petioled, narrow, linear ; seeds numerous. 
Syy.—Alpinia mutica. Roxb. Fl. Ind: vol. I. p. 65. 
Pointley’s narrow-leaved Alpinia. Smith, in Rees’s Encycl. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Root perennial, tuberous; stems erect, 5—6 feet high; petioles short; leaves alternate, bifarious, narrow, 
subsessile, linear-lanceolate, polished and entire, 1-2 feet long, 1 inch broad; sheaths smooth, terminating in an 
ovate ligula or ocrea; racemes terminal, slightly declined, many-flowered ; pedicels alternate, villous, two to four 
flowered ; bractes oblong, caducous ; flowers large, nodding ; calyx irregularly three-toothed, white, margins coloured ; 
corolla, tube short, recurved, border double ; exterior lip in three sections; superior section broad, ovate, concave, 
hoeded ; two inferior sections narrow, linear, oblong, ovate, all the sections white ; interior limb or lip expanding, 
waved, or curled, and bifid at the apex; two hairy glands supply the place of the spurs at the base of the lip in 
other species ; filament short, erect, covering the back of the anther, but not extending beyond it; anther large, 
double, attached by its back to the filament through its whole extent, opposite to the lip; style filiform, embraced 
at the base by the two small glandular processes ; stigma funnel-shaped, ciliate, compressed, extending a little beyond 
the anther ; capsule size of a gooseberry, yellow, or deep orange, three-celled ; seeds numerous, angular, arilled. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
This fine plant was first discovered in the forests of Prince of Wales's Island, and introduced into the Botanic 
Garden at Calcutta, by Mr. W. Roxsurcn; whence it was sent, some years since, to the Botanic Garden at 
Liverpool, where it has regularly flowered about August. 
The glands at the base of the lip tend to throw some light on the economy of these plants, as they carry on 
the functions of secretion; and lead us to suppose, that the spurs or hornlets, by which almost all the other 
species of Alpinia are distinguished, perform a similar office. 
Dr. Roxburgh informs us, that the style in this species is embraced at the base by a single, truncate, dentate, 
glandular body, (Nectary of Konig, Retzius, and Willdenow ;) but in this instance he is mistaken, it being furnished 
with the two processes, as in other Scitaminean plants. 
REFERENCES. 
1. Calyx. 
2. Upper lip of the exterior limb of the corolla, filament, anther, and style. 
3. The two lower lips of the exterior limb of corolla. 
4. The interior limb or lip of the corolla, with the glands at the base. 
