Ginger information

The spice ginger is obtained from the underground stems or rhizomes of Zingiber officinale (Rosc.), a herbaceous tropical perennial belonging to the family Zingiberaceae. In cultivation, it is usually grown as an annual. The whole plant is refreshingly aromatic, but it is the underground rhizome, raw or processed, that is valued as spice. Its medical value is increasingly being recognized. Ginger originated in South-East Asia, probably in India. The name itself supports this view. The Sanskrit name ‘Singabera’ gave rise to Greek ‘Zingiberi’ and later the generic name Zingiber.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) is a monocotyledon belonging to the family Zingiberaceae and to the order Zingiberales. In the Zingiberaceae, it belongs to the subfamily Zingiberoideae, which are aromatic with unbranched aerial stems, distichous leaves, open sheaths and hypogeal germination, mainly confined to the old world tropics with the centre of distribution in Indo-Malaysia. Among them, ginger is a slender perennial herb, 30-100 cm tall with palmately branched rhizomebearing leafy shoots. The leafy shoot is the pseudostem formed by leaf sheath and bears 8-12 distichous leaves. The inflorescence is a spike which generally springs directly from the rhizome.

The subfamily Zingiberoideae is also noted for two important spice crops, turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) and cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum Maton). It also includes a number of subsidiary spice plants belonging to the genera Aframomum, Amomum, Kaempferia, Languos (Alpinia) and Phaeomena (Nicolaia). The genus Zingiber Boehm has about 80-90 species of perennial rhizomatous herbs distributed throughout South- East Asia and extending to Queensland and Japan.

The ginger rhizome contains steam volatile oil, fixed fatty oil, pungent compounds, resins, proteins, cellulase, pentosans, starch and mineral elements. The composition of these components varies with type of cultivar, region, agroclimatic conditions, maturity and nature of rhizome, i.e. fresh or processed. The dry ginger on average contains moisture (10.85%), volatile oil (1.8%), oleoresin (acetone extract)(6.5%), water extract (19.6%), cold alcohol extract (6.0%), starch (53%), crude fibre (7.17%), crude protein (12.4%), total ash (6.64%), water soluble ash (5.48%) and acid insoluble ash (0.14%).