砂仁 sha ren

Plants (1--)1.5--3 m tall. Rhizomes procumbent above ground, clothed with brown, scalelike sheaths. Leaves sessile or subsessile; leaf sheath with netlike, depressed squares; ligule semiorbicular, 3--5 mm; leaf blade lanceolate to linear, 25--35 × 3--7 cm, glabrous, base subrounded, apex caudate. Spikes ellipsoid; peduncle 4--8 cm, scalelike sheaths brown or green, elliptic; bracts lanceolate, ca. 1.8 cm × 5 mm; bracteoles tubular, ca. 1 cm. Calyx white, ca. 1.7 cm, slightly pubescent, apex 3-toothed. Corolla tube ca. 1.8 cm; lobes white, obovate-oblong, 1.6--2 cm × 5--7 mm. Labellum white with yellow, purple-tinged midvein, 2 purple spots at base, and yellow apex, orbicular-spatulate, 1.6--2 cm wide, midvein convex, base contracted into claw, apex reflexed, 2-cleft. Filament 5--6 mm; anther ca. 6 mm; connective appendage 3-lobed, central lobe semiorbicular, ca. 3 × 4 mm, lateral ones auriculate. Ovary white pubescent. Capsule purple, green, or brownish when mature and fresh, brown when dry, ellipsoid, 1.5--2 × 1.2--2 cm, with branched or simple, soft spines. Seeds many angled, strongly aromatic. Fl. May--Jun, fr. Aug--Sep.

Forests, cultivated in wet and shady places in sparse forests; 100--800 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan [Cambodia, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam].