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Family Zingiberaceae
Yellow ginger
Hedychium flavescens Carey ex Roscoe
WILD GINGER
E mei jiang hua

Scientific names Common names
Hedychium conarium J. Konig var. flavescens (Roco) Cream garland-lily (Engl.)
Hedychium emeiense Z. Y. Zhu Cream ginger (Engl.)
Hedychium flavescens Carey ex Roscoe Wild ginger (Engl.)
Hedychium flavum sensu auct., non Roxb. Yellow ginger (Engl.)
Hedychium panzhuum Z. Y. Zhu Yellow ginger lily (Engl.)
 

Other vernacular names
AFRIKAAN: Geelgemmerlelie.
CHINESE: E mei jiang hua.
FRENCH: Longoze, Opuhi rea rea (French Polynesia), Gingembre jaune.
HAWAIIAN: Awapuhi melemele, Kopi rengarenga, Opuhi rea rea, Re'a rengarenga.
MANIPURI: Tekhao yaikhu amuba.
SAMOA: Teuila.

Botany
Hedychium flavescens is a robust perennial herbaceous herb with leafy shoots growing 1 to 3 meters high. Rhizomes are large and branching, thick and fleshy, up to 3.5 centimeters in diameter. Leaves are stiff, green sessile, oblong to lanceolate, up to 60 centimeters long, and 12 centimeters wide. Flowers are fragrant, inflorescences erect, up to 20 centimeters long, 8 centimeters wide, loosely imbricate, with a yellowish corolla, and staminodal tip that is obcordate, claw-like, reddish yellow at base. Fruits are globular capsules with three valves, containing many seeds.

Distribution
- Introduced as an ornamental for its fragrant flowers.
- Probably escaped cultivation.
- Growing at the edge of forests in Bukidnon and other low altitudes areas in Mindanao.
- Native to the HImalayas.
- Also occurs in China, India, and Nepal.
- In some places in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Madeira, considered an invasive weed.

Constituents
- Phytochemical screening of rhizome yielded carbohydrates, starch, sugar, protein, cardiac glycoside, phenols, saponins, alkaloids, tannin, phlobatannin, and terpenoids. Flowers yielded carbohydrates, ketose protein, phenols, saponins, and terpenoids. (7)
- GC-MS study for essential oil showed ß-pinene (43.6%) as the most abundant constituent. Sesquiterpene contents was 0.6%. (8)

Properties
- Essential oil has shown central nervous system tranquilizing effects and anthelmintic activities.
- Studies have shown antiproliferative, aantibacterial, antifungal, mosquito repellent properties.

Parts used
Stems, rhizomes.

Uses

Edibility
- Young buds and flowers eaten or used as flavoring.
Folkloric
- In the Philippines, base of stem is chewed or drunk as decoction for tonsilitis. (4)
- In the Moluccas, juice from the stem applied as remedy for swellings. (4)
- In Comoros, Africa, crushed rhizomes used to treat fractures. (6)
- In India, rhizomes used by tribal groups of Bijar as febrifuge, antirheumatic, tonic and stimulant. (7)
- In Manipur, India, rhizomes used for treatment of various skin infections. Boiled extract of rhizome wiith Meitei thum (local common salt) used as gargle for throat swellings and also taken orally for abdominal swellings, colic, and hemorrhoids. Crushed extract of fresh rhizome used with honey for chest oongestion, cough, asthma, and bronchitis. (11)
Others
- Perfumery: Distilled flower oil used as perfume precursor.


Studies
Coronarin D / Antiproliferative / Anticancer:
Study isolated coronarin D from dried, powdered rhizomes of H. flavescens. Coronarin D was shown to have antiproliferative proapoptotic, anti-invasive, antiangiogenic, antiosteoclastogenic, and anti-inflammatory effects through suppression of NF-kB and NF-kB-regulated gene products.
• Antimicrobial / Rhizomes: Study of essential oil of rhizomes for antimicrobial activity by disc diffusion showed strong antibacterial activity against Salmonella typhi, Escherichia coli, and Proteus vulgaris, and antifungal activity against Candida albicans and C. glabrata with zones of inhibition of 23 mm, 18 mm, 15 mm, 13 mm, and 14 mm, respectively. (9)
• Mosquito Repellent / Oil: In Mosquito Repellency assays, H. flavescens showed potent mosquito repellent activity (0.164 ± 0.023). (10)

Availability
Wild-crafted.

October 2018

IMAGE SOURCE: Photo: Hedychium flavescens Carey ex Roscoe / Wilder Mendez aka Lezumbalaberenjena / 22 Feb 2007 / Public = Wikipedia
OTHER IMAGE SOURCE: / Photo: Hedychium flavescens / Forest & Kim Starr / CC by 3.0 / 16 Julyy 2008 / click on image to go to source page / Wikipedia

Additional Sources and Suggested Readings
(1)
Sorting Hedychium names
/ Maintained by: Michel H. Porcher / MULTILINGUAL MULTISCRIPT PLANT NAME DATABASE / A Work in Progress / Copyright © 1997 - 2000 The University of Melbourne.
(2)
Hedychium flavescens Carey ex Roscoe / Chinese names / Catalogue of Life, China
(3)
Coronarin D, a labdane diterpene, inhibits both constitutive and inducible nuclear factor-κB pathway activation, leading to potentiation of apoptosis, inhibition of invasion, and suppression of osteoclastogenesis
/ Ajaikumar B. Kunnumakkara, Haruyo Ichikawa, Preetha Anand, Chiramel J. Mohankumar, Padmanabhan S. Hema, Mangalam S. Nair and Bharat B. Aggarwal / Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, Oct 2008 / doi: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-08-0432
(4)
Hedychium flavescens / (Plants Cultivated in the Hawaiian Islands and Other Tropical Places / Staples GW, Herbst D R / Bishop Museum Press 2005)
(5)
Volatile metabolite profiling of ten Hedychium species by GC-MS coupled to chemometrics
/ Asit Ray, Sudipta Jena, Basudeba Kar, Namita Mahapatra et al / Industrial Crops and Products,, Oct 2018
(6)
Hedychium flavescens / Weed Identification and Knowledge in the Western Indian Ocean / WIKWIO
(7)
PRELIMINARY PHYTOCHEMICAL SCREENING ON THE FLOWERS AND RHIZOMES OF HEDYCHIUM FLAVESCENS CAREY EX ROSCOE / K. Regi Raphael and Manju Madhavan / Plant Archives, 2013; Vol 13, No 1: pp. 63-65
(8)
Hedychium flavescens / BrockwellGreenHouses
(9)
Chemical Composition and Antimicrobial Activities of the Essential Oils from the Rhizomes of Four Hedychium Species from South India / Baby Sabulal, Varughese George, Mathew Dan, & Nediyaparambu Sukkumaran Pradeep / Journal of Essential Oil Research, 2007; 19(1) / https://doi.org/10.1080/10412905.2007.9699237
(10)
Chemical Composition, Antifungal and Insecticidal Activities of Hedychium Essential Oils / Hamidou F Sakhanokho, Blair J Sampson, Nurhayat Tabanca et al / Molecules,  2013; 18(4): pp 4308-4327 / doi:10.3390/molecules18044308
(11)
AN ETHNOBOTANICAL STUDY OF MONOCOTYLEDONOUS MEDICINAL PLANTS USED BY THE SCHEDULED CASTE COMMUNITY OF ANDRO IN IMPHAL EAST DISTRICT, MANIPUR (INDIA) /
Th. Tomba Singh, H. Manoranjan Sharma / Research Journal of Life Sciences, Bioinformtics, Pharmaceutical and Chemical Sciences, 2018 / DOI: 10.26479/2018.0404.04

It is not uncommon for links on studies/sources to change. Copying and pasting the information on the search window or using the DOI (if available) will often redirect to the new link page.

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