- 150 - 



C. xanthorhiza this species differs conspicuously from both of them. The 

 colour of the rhizomes is nearest to C. Zedoaria, but more yellow, the principal 

 rhizomes are much longer, the branches more curving. The red colour on 

 the young leaves is less intense, though more transparent at the backside. 

 The adult leaves are quite dark green. The spike differs from C. Zedoaria 

 by the larger number of bracts (40 in the present specimen of which 13 

 belong to the coma) which are diluted green without a purple tip, while 

 the comabracts are here more pure violaceous-red, (551 cod.) passing in 

 white below, and have a dark reddish tinge in C. Zerfoar/a (578 cod.). The 

 shape of the bracts is also very much wider and more obtuse, the mucro 

 is wanting in C. Zedoaria. Compared with it C. xanthorhiza has a still 

 taller dense flowered spike with a very large intensely purple coma and 

 purple tipped bracts. The flowers in C. Zedoaria are smaller, the lube is 

 much shorter, the lip broader and the midlobe less prominent, the petals 

 are pale rosy. The flower of C. xanthorhiza has red petals and has a much 

 longer tube, almost as long as the limb with the faux (26 to 30). 



It is not quite impossible that this species is the same as that represented 

 by Plate XXX, which is still badly known. 



The mean bracts in this new species are broadly obovate, rounded 

 above with an obtuse, wide, not much prominent tip The full length is 

 42 mm., the greatest width 30 mm., the length of the adnate part 24 mm. 



In many aspects, colour of the coma and the mean bracts, and of the 

 flower, adult leaves quite green, the species resembles C. Mangga. 



It differs however by the much larger dimensions of the spike and 

 flowers, the more inflated faux, the broader and shorter, less prominent 

 midlobe of the lip, and by the colour of the young leaves and the propr- 

 ieties of the rhizome. 



§ 2. Some notes about collecting and preserving of materials. 



Whoever has been interested in studying herbarium materials of the 

 order of Zingiberaceae has experienced the difficulty and often impossibil- 

 ity of identifying and describing species of that order by means of herb- 

 arium. 



Partly this is due to the similarity in leafshape and habit in several 

 genera, owing to which sterile specimens very rarely give certain indicat- 

 ions about the species, but principally to the inadequate treatment of the 

 flowers, in preparing them for the herbarium, in the large majority of 

 specimens the inflorescences have been dried with the flowers still on and 

 then in many species of this order, they get into such a condition that it 

 is impossible, either by boiling in water or soaking with a solution of 

 ammonia, to extract one single well conditioned flower from the cohering 

 mass. One is often glad to find an adult bud, from which a few important 



