1. The spathe.
2.A blossom divested of the chive and honey-cup.
3.The honey-cup.
4.The sheath which crowns the seed-bud.
5.The chive, pointal, and seed-bud.
6.The same without its chive.
7. A transverse section of the seed-bud magnified
The new and elegant plant here figured was obligingly communicated to us in September last by A. B. Lambert, Esq. who informs us that it had grown vigorously to the height of about three feet in the bark-bed of his hot-house, without showing flowers; but that, on being removed from the tan and placed upon the flue, it soon produced those which we have here delineated; whence it is probable that the check to its growth, occasioned by the mere change of situation, was the cause of its blooming, as in other collections it has not hitherto done it. Mr. L. likewise informs us that its native country is Coromandel, and that it is intended for publication by Dr. Roxburgh under the name of Amomum calcaratum; and showed us a drawing of it, so named, copied from one that was made in the East Indies from a native specimen, and which represents the plant somewhat slenderer and less upright than the individual we have here depicted.
Whoever will carefully investigate and compare our dissected figures of this plant with those which are given with Renealmia nutans on our 360th plate, will not only find that they precisely agree with each other (as much as two distinct species of plants can do), but that both of them very sufficiently correspond with the essential characters of the genus Renealmia: yet both are, no doubt, specifically distinct from Renealmia exaltata; wherefore we have not hesitated to withdraw the present plant from the genus Amomum, from which, independent of its widely different mode of flowering, we believe it to be generically distinct. Neither are the above-mentioned all the species of Renealmia we have a knowledge of; for even in the British gardens (exclusive of those which have not yet been introduced to us alive) we are already acquainted with at least three more. But how far some of these plants are distinct from the four diandrous Globbæ enumerated by Willdenow, and from Schrader’s Zerumbet speciosum, which is a true Renealmia, we are not at present prepared to determine; yet cannot help remarking that the last-mentioned plant should seem to resemble the Globba Japonica of Thunberg;—that our present subject may resemble G. Marantina;—that G. nutans greatly resembles Renealmia nutans; and that at least one of the figures cited by Willdenow for the former in Rumphius, is absolutely the same as R. nutans:—and, lastly, that R. exaltata of Linn. Supp. Pl. possesses, in a very striking and remarkable manner, the extraordinary habit of the remaining Globba uviformis.
As to culture, these are all stove plants, and in this country require the assistance of the tan-bed to make them flourish. Rich earth and great plenty of pot-room are likewise requisite, and also a large portion of water when they are vegetating briskly, but less when they are almost at a stand,—which is sometimes the case,—although they are never perfectly quiescent, as is common in the neighbouring genus Amomum. They are propagated easily by parting their perennial roots.[Pg 123]
PLATE CCCCXXII.
CROTOLARIA JUNCEA.
Rushy-stalked Crotolaria.
CLASS XVII. ORDER IV.