144 
ROSCOEA PURPUREA. 
Purple Roscoea. 
MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA Nat. Ord. SCITAMINE^. 
Gen. Char. — Anthera biloba, incurva, terminalis, stylum vaginans, basi bi- 
calcarata. Corolla ringens, limbo duplici. Calyx monophyllus, tubu- 
losus. 
Roscoea purpurea; spica foliorum vaginis obvoluta, calyce obliquo in- 
tegro. Sm. 
R. purpurea, Sm. Ex. Bot. p. 97. t. 100. 
Root (according to Smith) consisting of several clustered, oblong, tapering 
knobs, producing branched fibres. Stem erect, nearly a foot high, 
simple, leafy, terete, clothed with the striated sheathing bases of the 
leaves. Leaves lanceolate, spreading, distichous, waved, with a central 
midrib and many parallel oblique nerves, pale green. 
A cluster of flower-buds is produced within the sheathing base of the upper 
leaves, but only one is expanded at a time. Each has a triangular, ob- 
long, pale green, 3-celled, inferior germen. A tubular, membranaceous 
spatha, similar to a calyx or outer corolla, arises from the top of the ger- 
men, opening laterally from the summit, and sheathing almost the whole 
of the tube of the corolla. Corolla of a purple rose-colour, 4-5 inches 
in length, consisting of 6 divisions, 3 outer and 3 inner, each bilabiate, 
united below into a long filiform white tube. Of the 3 outer divisions, 
the segments are lanceolate, the upper one is erect, very hollow and ca- 
rinate, compressed, the margin much revolute, the extremity a rather 
sharp white point ; the two lower are bipartite, reflexed and pale : the 
3 inner ones very unequal, the 2 upper ones erect, hatchet-shaped, and 
forming a sort of hood or helmet to the anther and stigma, pale ; the 
lower one, very large, clawed, rotundate, subplicate, obscurely 3-lobed, 
its central lobe very spreading, emarginate at the point. There are a 
few deep purple streaks at the top of the claw, which gradually dis- 
appear in the lamina. Filament linear, grooved. Anther with a 2-horn- 
ed white appendage at the base, curved, oblong, yellowish, 2-celled, 
emarginate at the top for the reception of the stigma. Style very long, 
filiform, passing through the tube of the corolla and the groove of the 
filament and anther, and terminating in the globular perforated stigma 
at the top of the anther. This stigma is slightly pubescent, and ciliated 
at the margin of the perforation. 
VOL. II. 
