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Ginger

Zingiber

Also called Gingers, True Gingers

Ginger
Photo: Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen, Public domain

Zingiber is a genus of flowering plants in the ginger family, including the true gingers such as garden ginger (Z. officinale) and myoga (Z. mioga). Grow them warm and humid with moist, fertile soil, typically from divided rhizomes.

Family
Zingiberaceae (Ginger family)
Light
Part shade, Bright indirect
Water
Keep soil evenly moist during the growing season and reduce watering when the foliage dies back.
Soil
Rich, well-drained, humus-heavy soil or peat-based potting mix.
Temperature
18–30 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Easy
Safety
Not known to be toxic
Edible
Yes, some parts

About

Zingiber is a genus of flowering plants in the family Zingiberaceae. It is native to China, the Indian subcontinent, New Guinea, and Southeast Asia, especially Thailand. It contains the true gingers, plants grown the world over for their culinary value. The most well known species are Z. officinale and Z. mioga, two garden gingers. The genus name comes from Latin borrowing the Tamil name for the first species.

Uses

Each ginger species has a different culinary usage; for example, myoga is valued for the stem and flowers. Garden ginger's rhizome is the classic spice "ginger", and may be used whole, candied (known commonly as crystallized ginger), or dried and powdered. Other popular gingers used in cooking include cardamom and turmeric, though neither of these examples is a "true ginger" – they belong to different genera in the family Zingiberaceae.

Other Zingiber plants

Cassumunar Ginger · Myoga · Ginger · Bitter ginger

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Zingiber by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

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