Hedychium coronarium J. König
Family
Zingiberaceae
Synonyms
Hedychium flavescens Carey ex Roscoe.
Vernacular Names
|
Malaysia |
Gandasuli, suli. |
|
English |
Common ginger lily, garland flower, butterfly lily. |
|
Indonesia |
Gondasuli (Javanese), gandasoli (Sundanese), Mandasuli (Balinese). |
|
Philippines |
Kamia (Tagalog, Bikol, Cebu Bisaya), banay, katkatan (Bisaya). |
|
Thailand |
Mahaahong (Central), tha haan, hun kaeo (Northern). |
|
Vietnam |
B[aj]ch di[eej]p, ng[ar]i ti[ee]n. |
Geographical Distributions
Hedychium coronarium is native to the Himalayas and southern China, now with a pantropical distribution, cultivated and sometimes naturalised, also in southern Africa and South America.
Description
Hedychium coronarium is a stout terrestrial herb that can grow up to 1-2.5 m tall, with fleshy rhizome, measuring 2.5-5 cm in diametre and strongly aromatic. Its leaves are large, oblong to lance-shaped, measuring 16-60 cm x 5-10 cm, hairless above, hairless or sparsely hairy beneath, with ligule up to 3 cm long and bilobed. The spike is obovoid to rhomboid, measures 5-20 cm long and with concealed rachis. The bracts are ovate to obovate, measure up to 5 cm long, closely imbricating, green and each is with 2-5 flowers.
The flower is showy, fragrant, white or pale yellow. The sepal is tubular with cleft on one side and measures up to 4 cm long and green while the petal tube is up to 8 cm long. The petal lobes are linear-lance-shaped, measure about 4 cm long, with obcordate or obovate labellum, measure 5-6 cm wide, white or pale yellow with darker yellow spots at the narrowed base. The lateral staminodes are oblong-lance-shaped, measure 3-5 cm long and clawed. The fertile stamen does not exceed the labellum, anther is strongly curved and measures 1.5 cm long. The capsule is oblong, smooth, with orange-yellow valves inside and many-seeded. The aril is red.
Ecology / Cultivation
Hedychium coronarium is often cultivated as a garden plant but sometimes escapes and can be found growing along rivers, in swampy areas, open wet locations and the edges of shaded secondary forests, from sea level up to 2500 m altitude.
Line Drawing / Photograph
References
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Plant Resource of South-East Asia No.12(2): Medicinal and poisonous plants 2.
