27 4 A Report on New and Rare Plants, fyc. 



XVII. Costus Pisonis. 



Costus spicatus f, Hortus Kewensis. 

 This species of Costus has been long ago described, with 

 an expressive though rude figure, by Pi so, in his History of 

 the Medicinal productions of Brazil, page 98, under the 

 name of Jacuacanga, or Paco Coatinga. By modern bota- 

 nists, it has been confounded with the Alpinia spicata of 

 Jacquin, which has yellow flowers, and an ovate, not oval, 

 spike. The last mentioned author, who saw his own plant 

 alive, and has given an ample account of it, pointed out the dis- 

 crepancy between the yellow-flowered species found by him 

 on the banks of torrents, in Martinique, and the red flower- 

 ing Brazilian kind, described by Piso, in the work above 

 cited. The present species was sent to the Society by 

 Robert Hesketh, Esq. a most liberal and valuable Cor- 

 responding Member of the Society, from Maranham, in 1823. 

 It grows to the height of three feet or more, and is clothed 

 from its base with fleshy, elliptical, lanceolate, acuminate, 

 sessile, smooth leaves, which become smaller as they reach 

 the spike of flowers, which is oval, the size of a pigeon's egg, 

 and formed of stiff, ovate, entire, densely imbricated scarlet 

 bractea?, out of which proceed several rose-coloured flowers, 

 which, after remaining expanded for a few hours, close and 

 perish. The principal beauty of these species consists in 

 the brilliant scarlet or rather crimson colour of the spike, 

 which remains in beauty for many weeks, both before and 

 after the flowers are protruded. It is a tender stove plant, 

 slowly propagated by dividing its roots. A figure of it will 



