156 
RIDLEY. 
GeocJiaris and Lowia, and, except as introduced plants, Curcuma , Kaemp- 
feria and Phaeomeria. 
Some notes on the distribution of the sections of the genera represented 
may he of interest. It is noticeable that in the genus Globba nearly all 
the species are- white-flowered with but few yellow, while in India and 
the Malay Peninsula yellow-flowered ones predominate. In Borneo yellow 
ones become rare and white preponderate, and this is further accentuated 
in the Philippines. Hcdycliium is a genus of two groups, the terrestrial 
ones whose headquarters is in India, and the epiphytic ones of the 
tropical forests from Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula to the Philip- 
pines. H. coronarium, the only terrestrial species in the Philippines, is 
widely distributed throughout the eastern islands, but perhaps only in- 
troduced from the west. Zingiber is one of the genera of which her- 
barium specimens, unless specially carefully prepared and selected, are 
generally unidentifiable. It is usually necessary to take the flowers from 
the water-saturated spike and dry them separately in the field, as they 
perish or become unrecognizable often before one reaches camp. It is 
therefore often difficult to get a clear idea of the number of species and 
their relationships when one has to deal with material dried roughly 
and without special preparation, such as is found in ordinary collections. 
Hornstedtia is abundant in the Malay Peninsula, and in Sumatra, Borneo 
and Java; it thins out towards New Guinea, and as yet but two species 
have been found in the Philippines. Amomum does not appear to be 
strongly represented, but as these plants are often not very free-flowered 
we shall probably get more species later as collecting goes on. Two of 
the species described by Schumann under the section Bintalua appear 
from the descriptions to be species of Plagiostachys. 
Plagiostachys, a genus of but few known species, seems to be better 
represented here than elsewhere, as there appear to be three Philippine 
species. It ranges from the Malay Peninsula eastwards. Costus, 
typically an American genus, is represented by a few species in the East 
Indies, and in the Philippines by two, one widely distributed throughout 
the East, another endemic and allied to a Malayan species. Alpinia is 
the most strongly represented genus in the Philippines ; it is a typical 
eastern Asiatic one, ranging to Japan and Polynesia, beyond the region 
of most of the tropical Asiatic genera. 
The Marantac&ce all belong to Malayan genera and are all allied to 
species of the Malay Peninsula except the endemic genus Monophrynium. 
The Cannacece are represented only by introduced species. Lowiacece 
are absent. The Musacece are represented by the introduced Ravenala 
mcidagascariensis , some distinct species of Musa, and many forms of 
Musa sapientum Linn, and M. paradisiaca Linn. Material in this group 
has not as yet been collected by the American botanists, and there are 
no specimens in the collection sent to me. 
