MllSCl. JTNTA.NDKIA MONOGYNIA. 487 



Q M. coccinea, Andr. Repos. i. 47. 



Spadix and spathes straight, the latter one- or two-flowered, and 

 permanent. 



Chin. Qu-ang-chok-chee. 



Tins has been brought from China} where it is said to be indi- 

 genous. It thrives well in the Company's botanic garden at Cal- 

 cutta where I long took it for the banana in a dwarf stale , a state 

 the Chinese have the art of reducing most plants to ; but now, after 

 repeated examination for many years, I find it is undoubtedly a per- 

 manently distinct species. It resembles the Banana and 1 lantahl 

 in habit, and in its perennial root. 



Stem erect, generally three or four feet high, and about as thick 

 as a man's arm. Like the other species they perish soon after fruc- 

 tification, and like them, are succeeded by shoots from the root. — ■ 

 heaves linear, &c as in M. Sapient wn. — Spadix erect. — Spatfies 

 linear-oblong, boat-shaped, erect, obtuse, both sides smooth, and ot a 

 bright scarlet colour; all are permanent, and embrace one, or at 

 most two flowers. — Flowers, the inferior ones are female-hermaphro* 

 dite and fertile. The superior ones male-hermaphrodite and abortive. 

 With Gaertner I consider the coiol as two-petalled in this genus, 

 (and not as a nectary ;) and in this species it is particularly so. In 

 M* Sapientum the. two ovate scales over the inside of the fissures of 

 the exterior petal may be called nectarial. Petals two, as long as 

 the stamens, somewhat ringent; the exterior one involving the interior 

 like a spathe, its apex three-parted; the lateral divisions thereof end- 

 ing in a slender hornlet ; the middle one is broader and three-parted; 

 soon after expansion they become reflected, then revolute. Interior 

 petal nearly as long as the exterior, apex sometimes entire, sometimes 

 three-parted. — Filaments uniformly five, surrounding three. fourths 

 of the style. Anthers in the male. hermaphrodite flowers linear, 

 about as long as the filaments, with a deep polliniferous groove on 

 each margin ; those of the fertile, or female-hermaphrodite flowers 

 are small, and totally destitute of pollen. — Germ inferior, oblong, 

 three-celled, Sic. Style as long as the stamens. Stigma oval, ob- 



