Wild Ginger
Botanical name:Curcuma amada Roxb.
Family name:Zingiberaceae.

Indian names are follows:
Hindi:Am Haldi
Bengali:Amada
Marathi:Ambi Haladi
Meitei:Yai Hanuman
Sanskrit:Amragandhi Haridra.

The herb is a wild grown plant being used in India traditionally for medicinal purposes and as spice besides for flavoring foods. It is another variety of turmeric with a difference that its rhizome gives the flavor of mango.

The herb is perennial with its short and thin rhizomes. The petioles are very long with simple leaves. The big flower heads are red in color and are borne in spiked inflorescence during July/August. The color of the rhizomes is light creamy yellow. It is sour with aromatic taste like green mango.

The rhizomes yield 1.1% essential oil containing d-alphapinene, 18%; ocimene, 47.2%; linalool 11.2%; linalyl acetate 9.1%; safrole 9.3%; and unidentified substances 3.5%. Rhizomes on acetone extraction yield a colorless oil, curcumin and a phytotesterol and an azulenogenic oil having pinene, camphor, l-alpha and l-beta curcumene and termerone.

The plant has its origin in India. Traditionally the herb is being used as a condiment and in pickles. The infusion is used to produce the flavor of the mango artificially in confectionery.

Method of processing the raw rhizome is identical to those of turmeric. Like turmeric it is also marketed as dry rhizome, powdered form and other form. Same technology can be adopted as in case of turmeric. It is popularly used for treatment of diseases and disorders and as cosmetics.

In Manipur, it is utilized for manufacture of tablets for cure of piles. It has capacity to cure diabetes. It is utilized as carminative, stomachic and considered digestive. It is good for fever, body ache and problems of nerve.

Black Ginger
Botanical name:Zingiber zerambet Smith.
Family:Zingiberaceae.

Indian names are as follows:
Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati:Karkashur
Meitei:Yaimu.

The herb is basically a wild variety of ginger referred to as black ginger due to deep blue colored rhizome.

It is a wild herb available in the warm and moist areas of the interior hilly region. It is considered as a folk medicinal herb hence was cultivated as a herb since olden days. The rhizome is much similar to ginger except its shape and size besides its deep blue color. The rhizome is also very bitter and has a disagreeable taste. The structures of leaves are like those of turmeric. However, its leaves are much smaller in size with light purple color in midrib portion.

The rhizome yields xeruminoe, a monocyclic sequiteopena ketone, which acts against a number of bacteria and viruses. Rhizome also yields an essential oil. Zerumbone can be isolated from rhizome and tetrahydrozerumbol and tetrahydric zerumborne can be prepared.

Its rhizome is its principal product like its cousin ginger. However it is not popular as a spice due to its bitter taste. However, after certain traditional treatment it is used as spice by certain tribes in North Eastern India. But it is grown basically for its medicinal properties and being popularly used as medicine by various tribal groups of North Eastern India like the Naga group, the Meiteis, the Kuki-Chin-Mizo group, the Bodo group and so on.