Hedychium coronarium Butterfly Ginger PFAF Plant Database

2 New Books ** Edible Plants: An inspirational guide to choosing and growing unusual edible plants and Woodland Gardening (Forest) [Paperback]. more >>


Search Page Content

Hedychium coronarium - J.König.

Common Name

Butterfly Ginger

Family

Zingiberaceae

Synonyms

Known Hazards

None known

Habitats

Moist places along streams and on forest edges[200].

Range

E. Asia - India.

Edibility Rating

Medicinal Rating

Care

Summary

Physical Characteristics

Hedychium coronarium is a PERENNIAL growing to 1.5 m (5ft) by 1 m (3ft 3in).
It is hardy to zone 9 and is frost tender. It is in flower from Aug to October. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs)

Suitable for: light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils. Suitable pH: acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It cannot grow in the shade. It prefers moist or wet soil.

Habitats
Woodland Garden Sunny Edge; Bog Garden; Cultivated Beds; South Wall. By. West Wall. By.

Edible Uses
Edible Parts: Flowers. Edible Uses: Young buds and flowers are eaten or used as a flavouring[177, 183]. Root - cooked. A famine food used when all else fails[177].

Medicinal Uses

Plants For A Future can not take any responsibility for any adverse effects from the use of plants. Always seek advice from a professional before using a plant medicinally.

Antirheumatic; Aromatic; Carminative; Febrifuge; Stomachic; Tonic.

The seed is aromatic, carminative and stomachic[218]. The root is antirheumatic, excitant and tonic[218, 240]. The ground rhizome is used as a febrifuge[240]. An essential oil from the roots is carminative and has anthelmintic indications[240]. The plant has been used as a remedy for foetid nostril[240].

Other Uses
Essential; Paper. The stems contain 43 - 48% cellulose and are useful in making paper[218]. An essential oil obtained from the flowers is valued in high grade perfumes[240]. The root contains 1.7% essential oil, which is used medicinally[240].

Cultivation details

Requires a rich moist soil and a sunny position[233]. It succeeds in shallow water[200] and can also be grown in a sunny border as a summer sub-tropical bedding plant[[1]. Plants are not very hardy, they tolerate temperatures down to about -2°c and can be grown at the foot of a south-facing wall in the milder areas of Britain if given a good mulch in the winter[1, 200]. The flowers have a delicious perfume which is most pronounced towards evening[245]. Plants seem to be immune to the predations of rabbits[233]. The tubers should be only just covered by soil[233].

Propagation

Seed - best sown as soon as it is ripe in a warm greenhouse at 18°c[200]. Prick out the seedlings into individual pots when they are large enough to handle and grow them on for at least their first winter in the greenhouse. Plant out in late spring after the last expected frosts. Division as growth commences in the spring[200]. Dig up the clump and divide it with a sharp spade or knife, making sure that each division has a growing shoot. Larger clumps can be planted out direct into their permanent positions, but it is best to pot up the smaller divisions and grow them on in a greenhouse until they are established. Plant them out in the summer or late in the following spring.

Plant Suppliers: Click here for a List

You can download this page as a PDF

Expert comment

Author
J.König.

Botanical References
200266

Links / References

[1]F. Chittendon. RHS Dictionary of Plants plus Supplement. 1956

Comprehensive listing of species and how to grow them. Somewhat outdated, it has been replaces in 1992 by a new dictionary (see [200]).

[177]Kunkel. G. Plants for Human Consumption.

An excellent book for the dedicated. A comprehensive listing of latin names with a brief list of edible parts.

[183]Facciola. S. Cornucopia - A Source Book of Edible Plants.

Excellent. Contains a very wide range of conventional and unconventional food plants (including tropical) and where they can be obtained (mainly N. American nurseries but also research institutes and a lot of other nurseries from around the world.

[200]Huxley. A. The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992.

Excellent and very comprehensive, though it contains a number of silly mistakes. Readable yet also very detailed.

[218]Duke. J. A. and Ayensu. E. S. Medicinal Plants of China

Details of over 1,200 medicinal plants of China and brief details of their uses. Often includes an analysis, or at least a list of constituents. Heavy going if you are not into the subject.

[233]Thomas. G. S. Perennial Garden Plants

A concise guide to a wide range of perennials. Lots of cultivation guides, very little on plant uses.

[240]Chopra. R. N., Nayar. S. L. and Chopra. I. C. Glossary of Indian Medicinal Plants (Including the Supplement).

Very terse details of medicinal uses of plants with a wide range of references and details of research into the plants chemistry. Not for the casual reader.

[245]Genders. R. Scented Flora of the World.

An excellent, comprehensive book on scented plants giving a few other plant uses and brief cultivation details. There are no illustrations.

Readers comment

Elizabeth H.
cindy	Sun Apr 2 2006

I bought a couple of the butterfly gingers at the Seattle flower and garden show in Feb. Unfortunately they didn't print the planting depth on the package. Your site is the only one that has furnisted that information. Thank you so much. I looking forward to watching it grow. Hopefully it will do well here, our summers are not always very long!

QR Code

What's this?

This is a QR code (short for Quick Response) which gives fast-track access to our website pages. QR Codes are barcodes that can be read by mobile phone (smartphone) cameras. This QR Code is unique to this page. All plant pages have their own unique code. For more information about QR Codes click here.

1. Copy and print the QR code to a plant label, poster, book, website, magazines, newspaper etc and even t-shirts.

2. Smartphone users scan the QR Code which automatically takes them to the webpage the QR Code came from.

3. Smartphone users quickly have information on a plant directly for the pfaf.org website on their phone.

Rate This Plant
Please rate this plants for how successful you have found it to be. You will need to be logged in to do this. Our intention is not to create a list of 'popular' plants but rather to highlight plants that may be rare and unusual and that have been found to be useful by website users. This hopefully will encourage more people to use plants that they possibly would not have considered before.

Add a comment/link

If you have important information about this plant that may help other users please add a comment or link below. Only comments or links that are felt to be directly relevant to a plant will be included. If you think a comment/link or information contained on this page is inaccurate or misleading we would welcome your feedback at admin@pfaf.org. If you have questions about a plant please use the Forum on this website as we do not have the resources to answer questions ourselves.

* Please note: the comments by website users are not necessarily those held by PFAF and may give misleading or inaccurate information.

Subject : Hedychium coronarium

Links	To add a link to another website with useful info add the details here
Name of Site
URL of Site
Details