CURCUMA RUBESCENS. 
MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
SECT. II. SCITAMINER. 
Gey. Cuar.—Anther double, embracing the style, bicalcarate at the base; filament petal-like, 
the middle segment antheriferous ; capsule three-celled, seeds numerous. 
Spec. Cuar.—Spike lateral ; 
3; Stem and petioles purple-clouded ; leaves lanceolate ; 
only ; exterior limb of corolla red. 
in three segments, 
mid-rib clouded on the under side 
Syy.—Curcuma rubescens. Roxb. Flora. Ind. No. 8. vol. i. p. 28. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Bulbs conical, palmate tubers inwardly pearl-coloured, aromatic, bitter; pendulous tubers long, fusiform, 
insipid; stems formed by the sheathing of the leaves, dark red ; petioles long, channelled, red; leaves lanceolate, 
inzequilateral, mid-rib purple-clouded on the under side only; the whole plant 4—5 feet high; a tinge of red is 
diffused through the upper surface of the leaves; spike lateral, 5-6 inches long ; scape and bractes tinged with a 
ferruginous red; coma inclining to pink; bractes each containing three or four flowers ; calyx short, three-toothed, 
pink-colour, slightly villous ; outer limb of the corolla in three segments, deep red or purple, the lateral ones equal, 
lanceolate, ovate, the middle or upper rather larger, vaulted, somewhat mucronate, extending over the style and 
stigma ; interior limb formed by the upper lip or filament, in three sections, the central segment bearing the anther, 
the lateral ones converging over it, pale yellow ; lower lip broad, ovate, yellow, with two deeper streaks ; 
two-lobed, each lobe terminating at the base, in a long subulated spur, somewhat incurved 
anther 
; stigma slender, 
supported at the base by two erect, simple, glandular processes, embraced by the anther, and terminating in a 
cup-shaped stigma. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
A splendid, although not a lofty species, easily distinguished from every other by the peculiarity of its 
colours, and yielding in its long pendulous tubers the fine farinaceous substance resembling arrow-root. In 
Travancore,” says Dr. Roxburgh, ‘‘ where some of the species abound, this flour, or starch, forms, I am told, a 
large part of the diet of the inhabitants.” Flor. Ind. vol. i. p. 29. The plant from which the drawing of the 
present figure was taken, is a native of Bengal, and was sent by Dr. William Carey to the Botanic Garden in 
Liverpool, where it flowered for the first time in England. 
Dr. Roxburgh, in his Description of Monandrian Plants, in Asiat. Trans. vol. xi. p. 318, mentions a singular 
fact not inserted in his Flor. Ind. viz. that this plant “ blossoms in May, and sometimes from the centre of its leaves, 
in September ;” a circumstance which demonstrates that a lateral or central inflorescence forms no certain specific 
distinction, although it may, in conjunction with other diversities, be employed for that purpose. This however is, 
as far as I know, the only recorded fact of the same species of Scitaminean Plant having flowered both from the 
root and from the centre of the leaves. 
Nor can we at present admit, that this compatability of a lateral and central inflorescence, will bear us 
out in concluding, that the case may be the same in a radical and terminal inflorescence, as observable in 
the species of Alpinia, Zingiber and Costus, in some of which the inflorescence has its peculiar scape, and 
: hes; at least they cannot be accounted for on the same 
i i i he summits of the branches ; 
in others is terminal at t 
