THE SCITAMINEZ OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. 7 
Pahang at Kwala Tenok; Tahan river. July 1891. 
G. oculata n.sp. 
Rhizome rather long creeping. Leaf solitary ovate gla- 
brous 8 inches long by 44 wide, dark green, purplish beneath, 
prominent nerves about 14, petiole 10 inches long or less. Scape 
short lateral, peduncle { inch long enclosed in the sheath 
with the base of the petiole. Spike 1} inch lony. Bracts ovate 
to lanceolate 4 an inch long red, lower ones’ blunt, upper ones 
acute. Fiowers 2 ina bract. Calyx 4 inch long, lobes 2 very 
short. Corolla tube an inch lone slightly dilated upwards, lobes 
lanceolate acute # inch long. Staminodes oblone lanceolate 
obtuse broader, pubescent $ inch lone white. Lip obovate 
bilobed, $ an inch long and as wide white, centre yellow 
anl 2 deep crimson patches at the base. Stamen filament 
short and broad, anther thick, cells divaricating with a deep 
groove between, pubescent, crest very short rounded. 
Selangor, Pahang track on banks at about 1500 feet altitude. 
CURCUMA. 
The Turmerics are not very strongly represented in the 
Malay Peninsula. The head quarters of the genus lying further. 
north in Northern India and Burmah. Very few occur in the 
Malay islands and of those that do it may b2 doubted whether 
most of them are not aliens. The genus is closely allied to 
Gastrochilus chiefly differing in the cone-like flower spike with 
very broad bracts, the upper ones often differently colored 
from the lower-ones, and as long or longer than the flowers. 
The rhizome is usually stout anl strongly aromatic and bears 
tubers either sessile or on long stalks, but in the species 
which frequent our damp anl shady jungles it is more slender, 
and often produces no tubers. Inleel these fleshy tuberous 
thizomes appear to be adapted for fool stores during the dry 
seasons, and thus as there are no dry perinls in the Malay 
jungles they are unnecessary. ‘The leaves are borne in tufts on 
the rhizome and are from two to six or mote in a tuft, usually 
oblong, or oblong ovate with long petioles. The flower spikes 
are in all our native species produced in the centre of the leaf- 
