ALPINIA MAGNIFICA. 
MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
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SECT. Il. SCITAMINER. 
Gen. CHar.—Anther double, embracing the style; filament erect, simple, not extending beyond the anther; 
inner limb of corolla unilabiate. 
Spec. Cuar.—Scape ; 
pe lateral; flowers aggregate, numerous, on a common receptacle; lip narrow, linear, ovate 
at the apex, scarlet, bordered with white; filament and style downy. 
* 
DESCRIPTION. 
leaves alternate, on short petioles, linear-lanceolate, sequilateral, strongly nerved; scape lateral, 
erect, covered with alternate, ovate, rufescent bractes ; 
Stem erect ; 
floral bractes five or six, broad-lanceolate-acute, scarlet, 
with a white margin; general calyx long, linear, ovate, and sometimes mucronate at the apex, scarlet, bordered 
with white, enclosing the general receptacle; florets numerous, 50—100, sitting on a common receptacle, 
and forming together a regular cone; filament about an inch long, and one-tenth broad, linear, flat, downy, 
supporting at its extremity the double anther; style simple, downy, rising from the germen, and supported — 
at the base by two broad, tooth-like processes; stigma a ciliated cup; outer limb of the corolla sitting on 
the germen, divided into three irregular, ovate sections; inner limb or lip somewhat larger, ovate, bright 
scarlet, and bordered on the margin with white; diameter of the intire flower about eight inches. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
This very singular and magnificent species of Alpinia, now for the first time published, is a native of 
the Mauritius, where a drawing was made of it in the year 1826, by Charles Telfair, Esq. This drawing 
came into the hands of Robert Barclay, Esq. of Buryhill, whose exertions in introducing new and_ beautiful 
plants into this country are so well known, and who most obligingly entrusted it to the care of my highly 
esteemed friend Dr. Hooker, Professor of Botany in the University of Glasgow, to be conveyed to me for 
the use of the present work. This was also accompanied by specimens of the flowers well dried and preserved ; 
by the immersion of a floret of which in tepid water, I was enabled to distinguish, to my equal surprise 
and satisfaction, the genus of the plant, so as to include in my series of Scitamineze what I little expected, 
an aggregate or compound flower, surpassing, in the splendour of its appearance, every other of the tribe 
hitherto known. 
These dried specimens were accompanied by leaves different from those in the drawing of Mr. Telfair, 
and which evidently appeared to be those of a fine new species of Zingiber, with a large conical spike, of 
which a drawing was also made by Mr. Telfair; but which, not being accompanied by the details of the 
flowers, cannot be decided on with sufficient certainty for the present work. 
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REFERENCES. 
{. Exterior floral bractes. 
2. A single bracte of the same series. 
3. One of the leaflets of the calyx. | 
4. A single floret, shewing the three sections of the exterior limb of the corolla, and the 
interior limb or lip, with the filament and anther, stile and stigma, in position. 
. Filament and anther separate. 
6. Germen, with its processes, style and stigma separate. 
On 
