Zingiber officinale

Erect, slender, perennial herb usually grown as an annual crop, with a thickened, fleshy, subterranean rhizome and with one or more aerial leafy stems, up to 1.25 m tall. Rhizome robust fleshy, up to 2 cm thick, growing horizontally underground but at shallow depth, irregularly branched but normally only in the vertical plane, covered with deciduous, thin scales which leave ring-like scars, epidermis corky, pale yellow to reddish, irregularly wrinkled in the dried rhizome, flesh pale yellow, aromatic, on dried rhizomes scars of leafy stems visible as shallow cup-like holes. Stem erect, unbranched, mainly formed by the leaf sheaths, pale green, often reddish at base, scales covering the lower part oblong, about 6 cm x 1 cm, scarcely white-pilose outside, with prominent parallel veins and scarious margins. Leaves distichous, sheath prominently veined, densely appressed pilose, especially so in the upper part, with white, scarious, glabrous margins, ligule up to 5 mm long, bi-lobed, glabrous to sparsely pilose, scarious, blade linear to lanceolate, up to 30 cm x 2 cm, acuminate at apex, finely parallel-veined, glabrous above, scarcely pilose below, light to dark green. Inflorescence arises direct from rhizome, spiciform, 15-30 cm long, scape slender, 10-20 cm long, below the spike covered with scales as on the leafy stem bases, the upper ones sometimes with short leafy tips, spike ovoid to narrow ellipsoidal, 4-7 cm x 1.5-2.5 cm, light green, bracts appressed, ovate to elliptical, 2-3 cm x 1.5-2 cm, yellow-green, margin scarious, incurved, the lower ones with slender whitish acute tips, glabrous, finely parallel-lined, in the axil of each bract one flower may be produced, flowers fragile, short-lived, surrounded by a spatha-like bracteole, bracteole narrower and slightly longer than the bract, usually persisting and enclosing the fruit, calyx tubular-spathaceous, 10-12 mm long, whitish, corolla tubular, pale yellow, widening at top into 3 lobes, tube 18-25 mm long, dorsal lobe long ovate, 15-25 mm x 7-8 mm, with beak-like rounded apex curved over the anther, ventral lobes oblong, 13-15 mm x 2-3 mm, apex rounded, 3-veined, strongly recurved, labellum about circular in outline, 12-15 mm in diameter, tubular at base (tube 3 4 mm), 3-lobed above, central lobe obovate, 12 mm x 9 mm, side lobes elliptical, 5 mm x 3.5 mm labellum pale yellow outside, inside dark purple or red at top and at margins, mixed with yellowish spots, scattered pilose at throat, filament about 1.5 mm long, anther 2-celled, ellipsoidal, 7-9 mm x 3 mm, pale yellow, connectivum prolonged into a slender, curved, purple, beak-like appendage 7 mm long, enclosing the upper part of the style, ovary globose, 2 mm in diameter, 3-locular, style filiform, 3.5 cm long, white, slightly recurved and widening at top, ending in a funnel-shaped white stigma which is ringed with stiff hairs around its upper margin, 2-3 fleshy, sublinear, white nectaries, 5 mm long, are situated against the style on top of the ovary. Fruit a thin-walled capsule, 3-valved, red. Seed small, arillate, black.