BIRDS AND ALL NATURE 
ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY. 
Vol. V. FEBRUARY, 1899. No. 2 
GINGER. 
Zingiber officinale Roscoe. 
DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER, 
Northwestern University School of Pharmacy. 
"And ginger shall be hot i' the mouth, too." 
— Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II., 3. 
THE well-known spice ginger is 
the underground stem (rhizome} 
of an herbaceous reed-like plant 
known as Zingiber officinale. 
The rhizome is perennial, but the leaf 
and flower-bearing stems are annual. 
The stems are from three to six feet 
high. The leaves of the upper part of 
the stem are sword-shaped; the lower 
leaves are rudimentary and sheath-like. 
The flowers occur in the form of 
conical spikes borne upon the apex of 
stems which bear only sheath-like 
leaves. 
The ginger plant is said to be a na- 
tive of southern Asia, although it is 
now rarely found growing wild. It is 
very extensively cultivated in the 
tropical countries of both hemispheres, 
particularly in southern China, India, 
Africa, and Jamaica. The word ginger 
is said to have been derived from the 
Greek "Zingiber," which again was de- 
rived from the Arabian "Zindschabil," 
which means the "root from India." 
It is further stated that the word was 
derived from Gingi, a country west of 
Pondecheri where the plant is said to 
grow wild. 
True ginger must not be confounded 
with "wild ginger," which is a small 
herbaceous plant (Asarum canadense) 
of the United States. The long, slender 
rhizomes of Asarum have a pungent, 
aromatic taste similar to ginger. Ac- 
cording to popular belief this plant 
has a peculiar charm. Friends pro- 
vided with the leaves are enabled to 
converse with each other, though many 
miles apart and speaking in the faint- 
est whisper. 
The early Greeks and Romans made 
extensive use of ginger as a spice and 
as a medicine. During the third cen- 
tury it was apparently a very costly 
spice, but during the eleventh century 
it became cheaper, owing to extensive 
cultivation, and was quite generally 
used in Europe. Dioscrides and Pli- 
nius maintained that this spice was 
derived chiefly from Arabia. The 
noted traveler and historian, Marco 
Polo (1280-1290) is said to have been 
the first European who saw the wild- 
growing plant in its home in India. 
As early as the thirteenth century a 
considerable number of varieties of 
ginger were under cultivation, which 
received distinctive names as Beledi, 
Colombino, Gebeli, Deli, etc., usually 
named after the country or locality 
from which it was obtained. 
At the present time Jamaica supplies 
the United States with nearly all of 
the ginger, and this island is, there- 
fore, known as "the land of ginger." 
Cochin-China and Africa also yield 
much ginger. In Jamaica the process 
of cultivation is somewhat as follows: 
During March and April portions of 
4') 
