IloveIndia

Fitness IloveIndia

Ginger

Botanical Name(s): Zingiber Officinale
Family Name: Zingiberaceae
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Zingiberales
Family: Zingiberaceae
Genus: Zingiber
Species: Z. officinale
Popular Name(s): Root Ginger, Ardrakam, Shunthi, Adrak, Sunth, Black Ginger, Race Ginger, African Ginger, Jamaica Ginger, Sheng Jiang.
Parts Used: Fresh and dried rhizomes
Habitat: South East Asia and throughout India.

Description
A deciduous perennial herb, ginger flourishes in most parts of southern Asia, Jamaica, Nigeria and the West Indies. The creeping herb has thick, branching rhizomes and sturdy, upright stems, with pointed lance-like leaves that are 15 to 30 cm in length. It produces yellow-green flowers, with a deep purple lip and yellow marking. The fruits resemble fleshy capsules. Ginger grows well in fertile, moist and well-drained soil. The plant is cultivated in Florida, California and Hawaii, China, India and tropical regions. In India, the herb is called aadrak in Bengali and Urdu, adrak in Gujarati, shunti in Kannada, allam in Telugu, inji in Tamil and Malayalam, alay in Marathi and aduwa in Nepali.

Plant Chemicals
(+)- volatile oil (zingiberene and arcurcumene, beta-bisabolene and arcurcumene, neral and geranial, D-camphor, beta-phellandrene, geranial, neral and linalool, (E)-alpha-farnesene, mixture of cis- and trans-beta-eudesmol), shogaols (6-shogaol, 8-shogaol, 10-shogaol), gingerols (6-gingerol, 8-gingerol, 10-gingerol), bisabolene, zingiberene.

Uses & Benefits of Ginger
Caution