Last Saturday at the Botany Centre’s Function Hall, I gave a talk on the family of true gingers – Zingiberaceae – as part of the Community in Bloom gardening talk series. It was a sequel to an earlier one that covered on the Zingiberales order, which was delivered on 14 Mar 09. The latter was a bold attempt to introduce to the public a huge order of plants consisting of 8 families of flowering plants which are monocotyledons.
The Zingiberaceae is a family that consists of numerous herbaceous plants that have important economical, ornamental, medicinal and culinary uses. Many Singaporeans grow members of the true ginger family in their gardens, be it private or a community garden.
True gingers which are distinct from spiral gingers which are classified in a family of their own, Costaceae. Spiral gingers are popular ornamental tropical plants that are used quite prevalently in landscapes here in Singapore. There are two rather obvious differences between the plants from these two families.
True gingers emit an aromatic smell when a part of a plant is bruised whereas spiral gingers do not emit any smell. Spiral gingers, as their common name suggests, adopt an interesting growth habit where their leaves on a stem are arranged in a spiral manner. The leaves on a true ginger are produced distichously with respect to the leafy shoot (pseudostem).
I started my talk with gingers that most people are familiar with. Starting from the culinary gingers that are used in everyday cooking such as, Zingiber officinale (common ginger) and Alpinia galanga (greater galangal), my audience were brought on a discovery journey that gradually transit into the realm of ornamental gingers. In the talk, I took the opportunity to highlight some of the prettier and interesting ones such as Hedychium coronarium, also known as butterfly ginger that produces fragrant butterfly-shaped white flowers. The stunning Etlingera elatior or Torch Ginger, a towering and majestic plant with immense ornamental value, which also produces edible flower buds, was not forgotten.
After an introduction to a selection of various true ginger species that are worth growing, I shared with those present on how to grow them and solutions to problems that are commonly encountered during cultivation. A rather lively and interactive question-and-answer session then took place which lasted for about 45 mins. It was hoped that everyone benefited from the talk and sharing session.
