CHAPTER XIII 
GINGER 
The ginger is a herbaceous perennial plant, belonging 
to the order Scitamineae, and known as Zingiber 
officinale, Roscoe. It possesses a white, pungently 
aromatic rhizome, covered with scale leaves, which emits 
at intervals leafy stems, usually about 2 ft. tall, and 
rather slender, and covered with the sheaths of the 
leaves. The blades of the leaf are lanceolate acuminate, 
ending in a long point, light green and herbaceous, 
about 6 in. long and f in. wide. The inflorescence is 
normally borne on a separate stem rising directly from 
the rhizome, but occasionally is found terminating a 
leafy stem. It is in the form of a cylindrical cone of 
bracts, about 3 in. long, pale green, and borne on a 
peduncle about 1 ft. tall. From between the bracts 
appear at intervals, usually one or two at a time, thin, 
yellowish white flowers, with a black and yellow 
marbled lip. The stamen projects over the lip, and has 
an oblong, yellowish white anther, terminated by a long 
white horn, the connective. The style, which runs up 
through the anther, is slender and filiform, with a small 
round stigma. The fruit, which is very rarely produced, 
is in the form of a thin-walled capsule containing a 
number of small, black, angled seeds. 
VARIETIES or GINGER 
There do not seem to be many forms or varieties of 
the plant, as indeed might be expected on account of its 
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