Renealmia
(named in honour of Paul Renealme, a French botanist, who published, in 1611, a "History of Plants"). SYNS. Ethanium, Gethyra, Peperidium. ORD. Scitaminea. A genus comprising about fourteen species of stove, herbaceous perennials, natives of tropical America, one being also found in tropical Western Africa. Flowers one to three or many, beneath membranous, but not imbricating, bracts; calyx cup-like or loosely tubular, shortly trilobed; corolla tube short or rarely longer than the calyx, the lobes erect, or at length spreading, subequal, or with the dorsal one broader; raceme or thyrse sometimes on a leafless, scaly scape from the rhizome, sometimes at the tip of a terminal, leafy stem. Leaves two-ranked. The only species known to cultivation requires culture similar to Alpinia (which see). R. exaltata (exalted). fl. scarlet, on one-to three-flowered pedicels; scape coloured, villous; raceme elongated; bracts lanceolate, as long as the flowers. July. fr. blackish-violet, oval, 1in. long, with aromatic seeds. l. sessile, lanceolate, glabrous. h. 2ft. (sometimes, in a wild state, 8ft. to 10ft. or more). West Indies, 1820. (B. M. 2494 and B. R. 7771, under name of Alpinia tubulata.)