Malaysian Ginger - Zingiber

This site is inspired by the beautiful flowers from a varieties of wild ginger plant. They are found in almost every jungle paths in Malaysia. Yet the flowers many of them highly perishable, were not selected for mention as unique or beautiful. They continued to remain hidden in the jungle, left unnoticed.

Recently with frequent appearances of these flowers displayed as cut flowers during exhibitions, there are now greater awareness. Flowers from Ginger plants could be beautiful. Then comes the inevitable. Instead of developing the new find as an industry, the forest is raped. This is sadly evident and pursued by an increased level of poaching. One events leads to another, the consciousness on ginger attracted a lot of visitors who seek information's about Ginger as a plant.

To get started, Ginger as we all know is the closest linked to one in what is known as Chinese Ginger. Again, though there are several types of edible Ginger, commonly included in food preparation, one stands out as real "Ginger" - is this species - under the group name of Zingiber.

Halia in Malay. Scientifically as Zingiber officinale

This is a patch of "edible" ginger plants with flowers seldom seen by consumers

By co-incidence, the color of its bloom is unusual - Green. Beside this cultivated species, there are another 13 known species of Zingiber found in Peninsula Malaysia.

Having introduced the subject of edible ginger, this page now refocus back to wild ginger flowers.

In these 2 pages series, this first page deals with the variances of one species. The Zingiber spectabile, through their common appearances -when it comes to colors and size. The next page also feature the other species of Zingiber, in a series of pictures with variance in shape. The little noticed Zingiber's flowers as seen in their natural state, the wilderness.

The flower is now locally recognized as "Shampoo" by the florist. The color of the inflorescence varies with locality and also the age of the bloom. They would normally seen as a cluster of "Flowers" Some clusters can grow that big of having more than 20 inflorescence at one time. This is an annual affair.

Here a close-up for an inflorescene

Below-another with complete red hue

Above:- The stalk of the inflorescence is about 30 cm or more tall. It has green or reddish sheath. The crown or inflorescence spike is wide, cylindrical again can also be as high as 30 cm. and 75-100 mm in diameter. Notice that it is not point at the top.

Wide range of gingers cultivated for use as condiments or even medicine. I will be add these pages later. Right now, focusing on the topic of wild gingers flowers, these are 3 more commonly seen species with "shampoo" flowers:-

Scientific Name	Common Name	Local Name
Zingiber spectabile	Black Gingerwort	Tepus tanah
Zingiber puberlum	Dog's Gingerwort	Lempoyang anjing
Zingiber griffithil	Red Gingerwort	Tepus Merah

In this site, you will see them in Orange, pale green, yellow, bronze and red! Then varieties of flowers from different species

The inflorescences

The usual hue from pale Yellow to dark orange, or even a gradual switch to darker hue.

An evenly coated bronze

From the inflorescence, the flower. The bracts holding the flower is yellow at first then turns to red. It is broadest at the blunt with infolded tips. Each bract will hold one short lived flower.

A few flowers will bloom from each inflorescence spike at any one time, usually after the morning sun is high, [around 10.00 am]

The picture on the right shows the bracts with withered flowers.

More Zingiber flowers on the next page