# Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society/Volume 53/Fruit of Burbidgea
## Fruit of Burbidgea.Fruit of Burbidgea.

The dispersal of seed in the order Scitamineae seems to be nearly always affected by the aid of animals. Thus in the Catimbium section of Alpinia we find the globose capsule of- ten of a bright orange color. It partly dehisces and discloses the small hard aromatic seed, enclosed in a sweet white aril, popular with many animals and birds. In the smaller Alpinias of the Hellenia section, the whole fruit is pulpy, red or black, a berry in fact attractive to birds.
In the epiphytic and also in some at least of the terres- trial Hedychiums, the capsule which is of a bright orange color dehisces and the valves spreading disclose the seed wrap- ped in a brilliant read pulpy aril. The Amomums and other Scitamineae with radical inflorescence, have usually dull color- ed, green or brownish fruit, borne on the short peduncles close to the ground occasionally the fruit is brilliantly colored red, and ornamented with processes of various forms, and these appear to be chiefly dispersed by rats or other small ter- restrial mammals. Phacomeria (Nicolaia) has its fruits borne in a close set head on the top of the stout peduncle usually about two feet tall. In most species the fruit are dull green or brown, though in N. venusta they are bright red and conspicuous, but in all cases squirrels or rats seem to be the dispersers of the seed, gnawing the pericarp and scattering the seed to some distance.
In Burbidgra we have an entirely different system, the seeds being adapted for wind dispersal, and it is the only case. of such modification known to me in the order.
Burbidgea is a genus peculiar to Borneo, apparently always terrestrial, with stems of about 2 feet or less in height, which bear a raceme of red flowers resembling those of a Hedychium. The capsules are cylindric, 1 1/2 inches long and 1/8 inch through, pubescent, at first green then becoming brown, the pericarp thin and papery. When ripe the ​capsule splits for its whole length along one side. The placenta remains attached by both ends and from it are suspended the very small light seeds attached by a funicle 1mm long. The seeds are 3mm long and 1mm in diameter, cylindric with a short sharp terminal muero, they are brown and smooth. From the base of each rises a thin papery white aril irregularly cut into laciniae, some of which are nearly as long as the seed. The seeds hang downwards from the placenta waving with every puff of wind, and seem to be easily blown to a distance. They are very light and float on water. The aril is very thin and inconspicuous so that it is hardly likely to be attractive to any animal, and from the curious way in which the seeds are suspended, their lightness and the ease with which they are detached and blown away, there seems no doubt that the whole fruit has been modified from that of an ordinary animal-dispersal form, for dispersal by wind.
There are two species of Burbidgea known, viz B. nitida and B. schizocheila. It is from a plant of the latter which I received from Mr. J. Hewitt and cultivated in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, that I make these observations. I have however also a wild spray of fruits sent by the same collector.
H. N. RIDLEY.