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Zingiber officinale
Also called Garden ginger, Cooking Ginger, Common Ginger
In Singapore: Ginger, Halia, 姜, இஞ்சி (Grown in Singapore)
Ginger is a tropical herbaceous perennial grown for its aromatic rhizome, used as a spice. It thrives in warm, humid conditions with rich, well-drained soil and steady moisture.
Ginger (Zingiber officinale) is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of leaves) about one meter tall, bearing narrow leaf blades. The inflorescences bear flowers having pale yellow petals with purple edges, and arise directly from the rhizome on separate shoots.
Ginger is in the family Zingiberaceae, which also includes turmeric (Curcuma longa), cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), and galangal. Ginger originated in Maritime Southeast Asia and was likely domesticated first by the Austronesian peoples. It was transported with them throughout the Indo-Pacific during the Austronesian expansion (c. 5,000 BP), reaching as far as Hawaii.
Ginger produces clusters of white and pink flower buds that bloom into yellow flowers. Because of its aesthetic appeal and the adaptation of the plant to warm climates, it is often used as landscaping around subtropical homes. It is a perennial reed-like plant with annual leafy stems, about a meter (3 to 4 feet) tall. Traditionally, the rhizome is gathered when the stalk withers; it is immediately scalded, or washed and scraped, to kill it and prevent sprouting. The fragrant perisperm of the Zingiberaceae is used as sweetmeats by Bantu, and also as a condiment and sialogogue.
If consumed in reasonable quantities, ginger has few negative side effects, although large amounts may cause adverse events, such as gastrointestinal discomfort, and undesirable interactions with prescription drugs. It is on the FDA's "generally recognized as safe" list, though it does interact with some medications, including the anticoagulant drug warfarin and the cardiovascular drug nifedipine.
Raw ginger is 79% water, 18% carbohydrates, 2% protein, and 1% fat (table). In a reference amount of 100 g (3.5 oz), raw ginger supplies 333 kilojoules (80 kilocalories) of food energy and moderate amounts of potassium (14% of the Daily Value, DV), magnesium (10% DV) and manganese (10% DV), but otherwise is low in micronutrient content (table).
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ginger 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
