MONANBROUS PLANTS. S51 



In having strong, thick, crooked, permanent tubers, whith run nearly 



horizontal, a little below the surface of the earth, are strongly.marked 



with the annular scars of the decayed sheaths ; and from every part the 



long, thick, fibrous, fibres issue, which form the real root. '■ 



The stems are from biennial, to perennial, numerous, growing in tufts, 

 straight, and ere6l, or more or less recurved, according to their place in 

 the tuft; clothed with bifarious, lanceolate, acute leaves ; Siud all, except 

 Cjrdamomum, terminate in a copious raceme, or panicle of large, gaudy 

 flowers. The calyx, as in. the other genera of this order, is superior, 

 and consists of one leaf, haying its margin very irregularly divided. 

 This part furnishes little or no help in discriminating the species. The 

 corol is of one petal, with a double border, the exterior tliree-parted j 

 inner of one, large, more highly coloured lobe, or lip, or neciary, placed 

 on the under side, opposite to the stamina ; on each side of its base, or: 

 insertion, a curved hornlet is to be found in the greatest number of the 

 species. The filament is broad, slightly grooved on the inside, supporting 

 a large, double, em?irgm2Lte, crestless atither, with a deep fissure between 

 its lobes, for the reception of the style. The germ inferior, 3-celled, with 

 many seeds in each, (except in Galanga, where the number is constantly 

 two in each cell,) attached to a thickened portion of the partitions, a little 

 removed from the axis. Style slender, and of a length sufficient to raise 

 the infundibuliform, ciltate stigma, even with, or a little above the apex of 

 the anther. Nectarial scales, in this genus generally united into one, thick, 

 short, crenulate, truncate body, which embraces the base of the style on 

 the exterior side. The capsule is one of those that may be called berried, 

 invariably s-celled. The seeds more or less numerous, invested iti a 

 multiiid aril, and two integuments. In those I have had it in my power to 



