Zingiberaceae

Abstract

Zingiberaceae, the ginger family, in the order of Zingiberales, is a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants, made up of approximately 1600 species of aromatic perennial herbaceous with creeping horizontal or tuberous rhizomes. Its members are divided into about 50 genera and distributed throughout tropical Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Many of the family’s species are important ornamental, spice, or medicinal plants. Plants are perennial herbaceous, aromatic, and with rhizomes. They are pseudostems. Leaves are distichous and simple, basal ones usually reduced to sheathes, and with ligules. Flowers are zygomorphic, several- to many-flowered, arranged to terminal thyrse or spike or raceme, and subtended by bracts. Calyx is tubular. Corollas are 3-lobed. Stamens or staminodes are six and 2-whorled. Ovary is inferior and topped by two nectaries. Ovules are numerous per locule. Stigmas are funnelform. Fruit is a capsule, dehiscent or indehiscent. Seeds are arillate. Only one species, Hedychium coronarium Koen., is illustrated in this chapter.