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of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Ceylon, kindly sent me a living plant of an *Alpinia to add to our collection. This was a portion of a plant which has given rise to considerable interest and correspond- ence and which was the subject of an article headed "Chinese Ginger" in the Kew Bulletin of February last. From this article it appears that Dr. PERCEVAL WRIGHT, Professor of Botany in the University of Dublin, as long ago as 1878 "Wrote to Kew pointing out that the large flat ginger-like masses "sent to this country from China as preserved ginger differed from anything that the ordinary ginger "plant (Zingiber officinale) could possibly produce.

The Kew Bulletin goes on to say,

At the instance of Professor PERCEVAL WRIGHT, Mr. G. H. "M. PLAYFAIR (of H. M. Chinese Consular Service) sent a Wardian case of the Chinese plant to Kew "in 1878. The plants were propagated without difficulty and largely distributed to tropical colonies. "Unfortunately this brought us no nearer the solution of the difficulty. That the plant was different "to ordinary ginger was obvious. But plants of the ginger family, as is the case with many plants "which are easily propagated by their rhizomes, are shy of flowering in cultivation, while their foliage "is all so much alike that it affords no adequate means of discrimination. The plant obstinately "refused to flower at Kew, as it also appears to have done in Ceylon, and there was nothing to do but "wait till some lucky chance as to conditions of growth in some colonial garden enabled Kew to be "furnished with the necessary material for identification

"In December, 1888, we received the first authentic flowering specimen of the "Chinese Ginger" "from the Botanical Department, Jamaica. It was grown at the Hope Gardens, by the Superintendent, "Mr. HARRIS. This proved, as suspected by Mr. WATSON, to be an Alpinia, and also identical with "the Siam plant. It is in fact nothing more than the well known Alpinia Galanga.

(4

Specimens received in the present year from the indefatigable correspondent of Kew in Dominica, "Dr. ALFORD NICHOLLS, F.L.S., confirm this result, and Mr. FORD, the Superintendent of the Botanical "and Afforestation Department, Hongkong, having flowered the plant in the Hongkong Botanic "Garden, arrives at the same conclusion."

17. From this last quotation, it appears that one of the plants sent to England from Swatow and which had been forwarded to Jamaica flowered in the Botanic Gardens of that Colony in 1888. An- other plant of the same batch forwarded by Kew to the Ceylon Botanic Gardens has refused to flower there, but a plant passed on to me from Ceylon by Dr. TRIMEN in 1888 flowered freely last year and enabled me at once to see that it was Alpinia Galanga, Willd. I communicated this information to Mr. THISELTON DYER, and an extract from my letter was published in the Kew Bulletin in the article on "Chinese Ginger" above referred to. The following is a copy of that portion of my letter.

HONGKONG, July 10th, 1890.

"MY DEAR SIR,-The "Chinese Ginger" which you had at Kew, and sent to Ceylon, from "which Dr. TRIMEN, at my request, sent me a piece about two years ago, has just flowered with me, "and it is setting fruit. It turns out to be Alpinia Galanga. I shall have more particulars to write about this when the fruit has matured, when I will write fully on the subject. Dr. TRIMEN informed "me that it would not fruit in Ceylon.

*

"W. T. THISELTON DYER, ESQ., C.M.G."

Yours, &c.,

(Signed),

CHARLES FORD.

18. The conclusion arrived at in the article in the Kew Bulletin is that Chinese preserved ginger is not obtained from the ginger plant, Zingiber Officinale, Linn., but from the rhizomes of Alpinia Galanga, Willd. The evidence which has led to this conclusion seems to be that Mr. PLAYFAIR sent from Swatow to Kew a case of plants, alleged to be Chinese ginger and which have turned out to be Alpinia Galanga, Willd. This evidence, however, has, I fear, afforded nothing of value, except of a negative nature, towards proving the source of preserved ginger. In my opinion nothing is really needed as I cannot see anything in the preserved ginger which would lead me to suppose that it is anything except the rhizomes of the ordinary ginger plant, Zingiber Officinale, Linn., which is cultivated so extensively by the Chinese in the neighbouring provinces. In 1886 when travelling through the delta south of Canton, I saw ginger extensively cultivated and flowering freely in the rich alluvial lands. I obtained complete specimens for the herbarium, and they were without doubt the true ginger plant.

19. The Chinese ginger is apparently more succulent and the rhizomes are of a larger size than the West Indian article, but there is no specific distinction in the plant.

20. I cannot but think that Mr. PLAYFAIR while endeavouring to render a useful service was the innocent agent of a wrong conclusion having been arrived at through the natives who supplied him with the plants, which were sent to Kew, having brought in the wrong kind. The natives themselves were also probably innocent of any intention to deceive, a mistake possibly having arisen from the Chinese name of true ginger being a generic name applied to different species and even to different genera of plants. The rhizomes of true ginger Alpinias and Curcumas are all classed generically by the Chinese under the name "Keung." Zingiber Officinale, Linn., is "Tai Yuk Keung," Alpinia Galanga,

* A plant of this had been previously supplied (in 1886) by Kew Gardens to this establishment, but it unfortunately died on the passage out,