^06  Source  of  the  Radix  Galangce  Minoris.  {^"sep^; 
Pharm. 
1871. 
great  pains  to  indicate  to  Mr.  Taintor  the  locality  where  the  plant  had 
been  seen  ;  and  I  am  happy  to  say  that  Mr.  Taintor's  researches  were 
crowned  with  complete  success,  he  having  brought  back  fine  living 
plants  with  the  rhizomes  attached,  an  examination  of  which,  and 
comparison  with  authentic  specimens  of  the  drug  from  Mr.  Hanbury 
and  others,  procured  here,  leave  no  doubt  whatever  of  the  species 
being  the  true  officinal  one. 
The  following  account  from  Mr.  Taintor's  notes  will  explain  how 
he  obtained  the  plant :  "  The  locality  is  about  one  mile  north  of  the 
small  village  of  Tung-sai,  situated  upon  the  Bay  of  Pak-sha,  at  the 
southern  extremity  of  the  peninsula  of  Lui-chau-fu,  or  Lei-chau-fu, 
and  directly  opposite  Hoi-hau,  the  port  of  Kiung-chau-fu  in  Haenan. 
The  plant  was  growing  at  an  elevation  of  about  100  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea,  in  a  very  dry,  hard,  red  soil,  evidently  composed  of 
disintegrated  volcanic  rock.  The  plant  grew  in  masses,  which  had 
been  originally  planted  and  cultivated,  but  were  now  apparently 
neglected  and  running  to  waste.  The  roots  were  in  dense  masses  of 
sometimes  more  than  one  foot  diameter,  and  with  as  many  as  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  stalks  springing  from  each.  Rarely  more  than  one  or 
two  of  these  stalks,  however,  bore  flowers  at  the  date  of  collection, 
January  5th.  My  plan,  to  insure  that  I  was  getting  the  real  plant, 
was  to  write  the  two  characters  Liang  kiang^  (mild  or  gentle  ginger, 
the  Chinese  name),  and  tell  an  intelligent-looking  villager  that  I 
wanted  to  see  the  flower.  He  led  me,  without  the  least  hesitation, 
directly  to  the  spot  where  I  obtained  the  plants." 
I  must  add  that  Mr.  Swinhoe  has  since  found  the  plant  growing 
wild  in  dense  jungle  on  the  south  coast  of  Haenan,  one  of  his  speci- 
mens being  now  before  me,  and  that  he  has  informed  Mr.  Hanbury, 
as  I  quite  recently  learnt  from  that  gentleman,  that  there  is  a  good 
reason  for  believing  that  its  fruit  is  the  Bitter-seeded  Cardamom, 
figured  in  Mr.  Hanbury's  valuable  paper*  "  On  some  rare  kinds  of 
Cardamom." 
In  endeavoring  to  determine  the  specimens  collected  by  Mr.  Taintor, 
I  found  in  my  herbarium,  for  the  purpose  of  comparison,  only  the 
Hongkong  species  of  Alpinia,  and  a  few  Moluccan  ones,  received 
from  M.  Teijsmann,  of  the  Buitenzorg  Garden  ;  whilst,  as  regards 
books,  I  was  restricted  to  Roxburgh's  "  Flora  Indica,"  the  writings  of 
*  Pharm.  Journ.  xiv,  418,  fig.  8. 
