Roscoea
(named after William Roscoe, 1753-1831, the famous historian, and the founder of the Liverpool Botanic Garden). ORD. Scitamineae. A genus comprising half-a-dozen species of stove, perennial, Himalayan herbs, with thick, fleshy, fibrous rhizomes. Flowers purple, blue, or yellow, in a terminal, fascicled or spiked, sessile or pedunculate inflorescence; calyx long, tubular, two or three-toothed; corolla tube often elongated, shortly enlarged above; lobes three, the dorsal one erect, incurved and concave, the lateral ones spreading or recurved. Leaves narrow or sub-cordate-lanceolate; sheaths long and loose, sometimes very large. R. purpurea, the species known to gardeners, thrives in light turfy loam, and may be readily increased by divisions. R. purpurea (purple-flowered). fl. full purple, arising from two or three elongated, sheathing bracts; upper lobe erect, fornicate, two lower ones linear-oblong, spreading; lateral ones short, connate within the upper one; lip large, deflexed, obovate, deeply bilobed at apex. l. sessile, lanceolate, striated, very finely acuminated. Stem slender, leafy, about 10in. long, clothed with the striated sheaths of the leaves. Roots tuberous, fasciculately clustered. 1820. (B. M. 4630; B. R. 1840, 61; H. E. F. 144; L. B. C. 1404; S. E. B. 108.)