Article

Ginger

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Ginger

The ginger order (Scitamineae) constitutes one of the most botanically significant plant groups of the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, encompassing five families—Zingiberaceae, Marantaceae, Cannaceae, Lowiaceae, and Musaceae—whose members range from the familiar cultivated spice plants to a vast array of wild forest species [1, p. 85]. The group is characterised by aromatic rhizomes, fugious flowers of considerable structural complexity, and a close association with both human subsistence and the ecology of dense tropical woodland [1, pp. 85–87]. Ridley, writing as Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, observed that the traveller in the forests of the Peninsula could hardly fail to notice the beauty of many of the wild gingers, yet would be surprised to find how much this interesting group had been neglected by botanists [1, p. 85]. The economic and cultural significance of the order extends from the cultivation of ginger, turmeric, and galangal as spices, to the use of wild species in native medicine, to the exploitation of leaf fibres and stems for basket-making and paper production [1, p. 87].

Taxonomic Scope and Systematic Treatment

Ridley’s 1899 monograph provided the first comprehensive systematic treatment of the Scitamineae of the Malay Peninsula, a work he argued was necessary because earlier descriptions by Miquel and Blume were often so incomplete that it was impossible to determine what plants they were intended for [1, p. 85]. The fundamental difficulty lay in the preservation of the flowers, which are thin and fugacious, and the spikes, which are usually full of water; unless the flowers are dried separately from the spikes, they are apt to rot in the press [1, p. 85]. Ridley therefore compiled his descriptions in nearly every case from specimens in the jungle itself, or from plants brought home and cultivated in the Botanic Gardens, rather than relying on the inadequate dried specimens that had frustrated earlier workers [1, p. 85].

The monograph covers all five families within the order and describes or re-describes at least fifty new species, including Globba montana, G. calophylla, G. malaccensis, G. integra, G. Keithii, G. albiflora, G. elegans, G. violacea, G. perakensis, Hedychium microchilum, H. macrorrhizum, H. denticulatum, H. collinum, Camptandra lalifolia, Conamomum citrinum, C. utriculosum, Zingiber chrysostachys, Z. citrinum, Z. puberula, Amomum flavum, A. lappaceum, A. ochreum, A. perakense, A. testaceum, A. cylindraceum, A. hastilabium, A. micranthum, Hornstedtia grandis, H. conica, H. affinis, H. pusilla, H. pauciflora, H. velutina, H. metriocheilus, H. macrochilus, H. fulgens, H. venusta, Plagiostachys strobilifera, P. lateralis, Elettariopsis latiflora, E. pubescens, E. multiflora, Geostachys decurvata, G. secunda, G. rupestris, G. penangensis, G. elegans, Alpinia melanocarpa, A. rosella, A. secundiflora, A. assimilis, A. glabra, A. latilabris, A. nobilis, A. comosa, A. vitellina, A. cannaefolia, Phrynium cylindricum, P. malaccense, P. hirtum, P. basiflorum, and Donax grandis [1, pp. 89–184]. Two new genera were proposed: Camptandra, for plants with a peculiar arrangement of the anther quite unique in the order, and Conamomum, for stout plants with woody elevated rhizomes, free staminodes, and curved anther arms resembling those of Amomum [1, pp. 103–105].

A notable taxonomic intervention concerned the genus Globba, which Ridley reorganised around anther-spur morphology into three sections—Aplantanthera, Ceratanthera, and Marantella—explicitly dismissing bulbil production as a classificatory character of “absolutely worthless” value, since any species growing in a sufficiently wet spot, especially near a stream, will produce bulbils sometimes completely replacing the flowers [1, p. 89].

Economic and Ethnobotanical Uses

The Zingiberaceae are nearly all very aromatic, and many have very strongly flavoured root-stocks used as spices [1, p. 86]. Among these, ginger, turmeric, zedoary, and galangal are commonly cultivated in the Peninsula, and many of the wild Globbas and Amomums are used in native medicine [1, p. 86]. The true ginger of commerce, Zingiber officinale, is cultivated but never establishes itself in waste ground, unlike Z. zerumbet, which persists readily and is known to the Malays as Lampoyang and used in native medicine [1, p. 127]. The Zedoary, Curcuma zedoaria, known as Temu Lawas, is frequently cultivated and often persists in waste land after cultivation is abandoned, establishing itself thoroughly among lalang [1, p. 119]. Turmeric, C. longa, known as Kunyet, is often cultivated by the Chinese but does not naturalise in the same way [1, p. 120].

Several wild species carry specific ethnobotanical significance. Amomum uliginosum, known to the Malays as Pua Hijau, Pua Gajah, and Tepus Merah, is said by Derry to be deliberately planted by the Jakuns for its edible fruit, which is round, red, and covered with soft processes resembling those of a rambutan [1, p. 137]. The buds of Hornstedtia imperialis, commonly cultivated under the name Kantan, are eaten as a curry stuff [1, p. 148]. Alpinia galanga, the “Lankwas” of the Malays, is commonly cultivated and long persists after the ground is abandoned, though it does not seem to be known in a wild state anywhere [1, p. 163]. Alpinia cannaefolia, known as Pua Minyak, is used in medicine, a decoction of the leaves and roots being given in fever [1, p. 174]. Hedychium longicornutum, known as Tepus Lada and Ubat Chaching, has roots used in cases of ear-ache and as a vermifuge [1, p. 101]. Gastrochilus pandurata, the “Temu Kinchi” of the Malays, is sometimes cultivated, its rather stout rhizome being yellow inside and very aromatic, and used in medicine [1, p. 114].

Beyond the Zingiberaceae, other members of the order contribute to the local material culture. The stout stems of Clinogyne (now Donax), known as Bemban, are split up and used for making baskets [1, p. 87]. The leaf sheaths of the commonest wild plantain, Musa malaccensis, give a very good fibre, though not as good as that of the Manilla hemp (Musa textilis) [1, p. 87]. Ridley found that the leaf stems of the bigger gingers (Hornstedtia), beaten up and treated with caustic potash, formed a very good paper stuff, and might be used for that purpose if there was sufficient demand [1, p. 87]. In Borneo, Curcuma aromatica, known locally as “Entimut or Entimu,” is used by Dyak women as soap and in medicine for shingles [2, p. 234]. Hornstedtia reticulata, known as “Bungah Jungkal,” is very common at Matang, Bau, and Bidi, and the inner part of the leafy stem is sweet and eaten [2, p. 241].

Biogeographical Distribution and Ecological Notes

Ridley’s 1899 monograph documents the distribution of the Scitamineae across the Malay Peninsula with considerable precision, drawing on his own field collections from the 1880s and 1890s, supplemented by specimens from the collections of Dr. King (Perak), Curtis, Wray, Kelsall, Feilding, Derry, and others [1, pp. 85–184]. The genus Globba is abundant all over the Malay Peninsula and Siam, Sumatra, and Borneo, becoming rarer further east [1, p. 88]. Hornstedtia is scarce in India but abundant in the Malay Peninsula and the western part of the Malay archipelago [1, p. 139]. Alpinia is confined to East India, China, and North Australia [1, p. 160].

In his 1906 preliminary treatment of the Scitamineae of Borneo, Ridley observed that the genera of Bornean Scitamineae are “very much the same” as those of the Malay Peninsula, yet comparatively few species are actually shared; instead, closely allied forms predominate [2, p. 229]. He highlighted an inversion in Globba flower colour: yellow-flowered species are common in the Peninsula but scanty in Borneo, where white-flowered forms dominate [2, p. 229]. Two genera, Haplochorema and Burbidgea, are peculiar to Borneo, while Geostachys, Conamomum, and Hedychium are entirely absent from the island [2, p. 229]. The Bornean flora, while structurally similar to that of the Peninsula, contains a significant element of endemism, and Ridley described fifteen new species from the island, most of them from Sarawak [2, pp. 230–246].

Ecologically, Ridley noted that plants growing in dense jungle have the flowers close to the ground on short leafless stems, while those which grow on river banks or open spaces have them on the ends of leafy stems [1, p. 86]. The fruits of the different groups do not differ much, except in the case of the Musas, which have the well-known banana fruit; the rest have capsules of two or more seeds, usually enclosed in a sweet aril [1, p. 86]. The fruits are seldom conspicuous, and often only dull green in colour, especially those which fruit near the ground, the seeds of which are distributed by mice and squirrels who eat the sweet pulp surrounding the seed [1, p. 86]. The fruits of some of the terminal spiked species, for example Alpinia, are orange and showy, and the seeds dispersed by birds [1, p. 86].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on the ginger order is dominated by the work of H. N. Ridley, whose 1899 monograph in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society established the first comprehensive floristic treatment of the Scitamineae of the Malay Peninsula [1]. This work represented a significant historiographical correction to the Flora of British India (Baker) and Miquel’s Flora India Batavica, both of which Ridley found riddled with misidentifications and incomplete descriptions for this group [1, p. 85]. The monograph’s methodological innovation—compiling descriptions from living plants in the jungle or in cultivation rather than from dried herbarium specimens—addressed the fundamental problem of the fugacious nature of the flowers, which do not preserve well in the press [1, p. 85].

Ridley’s 1900 note on three new eastern gingers from Celebes and the Bismarck Archipelago extended the scope of the Society’s documentation beyond the Peninsula, describing Alpinia celebica, Anomum terminale, and Tapeinocheilus koordersiana [3]. The 1906 paper on the Scitamineae of Borneo, explicitly framed as a “mere preliminary” contribution, acknowledged that a very large number of Bornean species were either uncollected or collected but undescribed, and identified a recurring problem in matching Schumann’s descriptions in the Pflanzenreich—based on Beccari’s and Korthals’ material—with living plants collected on the same ground, suggesting that some of Schumann’s species concepts may be unreliable or insufficiently characterised [2, p. 229]. The Marantaceae were singled out as especially in need of further work, partly because their fugacious flowers require careful separate drying to be adequately preserved for description [2, p. 229].

The shifting priorities across these three publications trace a movement from systematic monographic treatment of a single region (the Peninsula, 1899), through brief taxonomic notes on extrapeninsular material (1900), to a broader biogeographical survey that explicitly acknowledged the limits of existing knowledge and the need for further field collection (1906). The key debates embedded in the literature concern the reliability of earlier European floristic works, the adequacy of herbarium-based taxonomy for a group with fugacious flowers, and the degree of endemism versus shared distribution between the Peninsula and Borneo.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. H.N. Ridley (1899). The Scitamineae of the Malay Peninsula JSBRAS 32: 85–184.
  2. H.N. Ridley (1906). Scitamineae of Borneo JSBRAS 46: 229–246. Read on JSTOR
  3. H.N. Ridley (1900). Some new eastern gingers JSBRAS 34: 97–99.