Zingiber officinale 

Zingiber officinale Rosc

Family     :  Zingiberaceae

Common Name : ഇഞ്ചി (Mal)

अदरक (Hin)

                                 Ginger(Eng)

     IUCN status          : Data deficient (DD)

Common ginger is a herbaceous perennial with upright stems and narrow medium green leaves arranged in two ranks on each stem. The plant gets about 4 ft tall with leaves about 3/4 in wide and 7 inches long. Ginger grows from an aromatic tuberlike rhizome which is warty and branched. The inflorescence grows on a separate stem from the leaf stem, and forms a dense spike, up to 3 in tall. The bracts are green with translucent margins and the small flowers are yellow green with purple lips and cream colored blotches.

Rhizomatous herbs; rhizome thick, dull yellow. Leafy stem to 60 cm high. Leaves to 25 x 2 cm, elliptic-oblong, acuminate. Inflorescence arises direct from the rhizome; peduncles to 30 cm long, erect; spike 3-5 x 3 cm, obovoid. Bracts 2.5 x 2 cm, obovate, green. Flowers few. Calyx 2 cm long, shortly 3-lobed. Corolla bilabiate, tubular below, yellow with purplish spots. Labellum 3 x 2.5 cm, white, obovate. Staminal filament short, anther cells contiguous, connective produced into a beak. Style filiform; stigma subglobose.