COMMERCIAL VARIETIES OP GINGER. 
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The sort of Jamaica ginger now found in commerce was 
formerly called white ginger, to distinguish it from an un- 
scraped sort, which was termed black ginger. The latter 
does not now occur in English commerce. 
Jamaica ginger is imported in barrels holding one cwt. 
.each. It is a scraped or uncoated pale sort. When of fine 
quality it consists of large, branched, plump, and fleshy soft 
races, whose texture is fibrous and mealy, and which exter- 
nally are yellowish white or pale buff, and internally, when 
cut present a bright but pale tint. Inferior samples consist 
of small shrivelled races, which have an ash-grey exter- 
nally, present a brownish color internally when cut, and 
have a hard or flinty texture. Good Jamaica ginger yields 
a beautiful bright straw-yellow, somewhat buffy, powder. 
2. Barbadoes Ginger (radix zingiberis Barbadensis.) — 
This is imported in bags of about sixty or seventy pounds. 
It is an unscraped, or coated, somewhat pale sort. 
Its races are shorter, less branched, flatter, and darker 
colored than Jamaica ginger, and are covered with a corru- 
gated epidermis. 
2. East Indian Gi?igers. 
This division includes four sorts of ginger, two from the 
Malabar coast and two from Bengal. They are more 
liable to be wormy than either West Indian of African 
ginger. 
3. Malabar Ginger (radix zingiberis Malabarici.) — 
Formerly one kind only of ginger was exported from this 
coast, namely, a coated or unscraped sort, which is some- 
times called the "old sort of Malabar ginger," to distinguish 
it from the uncoated or scraped kind which of late years has 
been brought from this part of the world, under the name 
of " new sort of Malabar ginger." I shall distinguish them 
by the terms coated and uncoated. 
a. Coated Malabar Ginger ; unscraped Malabar gin- 
ger ; old sort of Malabar ginger; common Malabar ginger; 
Bombay ginger. This sort is imported exclusively from 
