''Etlingera elatior'' (also known as torch ginger, among other names) is a species of

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of ...

perennial plant In horticulture, the term perennial (''wikt:per-#Prefix, per-'' + ''wikt:-ennial#Suffix, -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annual plant, annuals and biennial plant, biennials. It has thus been d ...

in the family

Zingiberaceae Zingiberaceae () or the ginger family is a family of flowering plants made up of about 50 genera with a total of about 1600 known species of aromatic perennial herbs with creeping horizontal or tuberous rhizomes distributed throughout tropical ...

; it is native to

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

. The showy pink flowers are used in decorative arrangements, and are an important ingredient in food across

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

Names

''E. elatior'' is also known as "torch ginger", "ginger flower", "red ginger lily", "torchflower", "torch lily", "wild ginger", "Indonesian tall ginger" and "porcelain rose". (); ; ; ().

Description

The species grows as a

pseudostem A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant, the other being the root. It supports leaves, flowers and fruits, transports water and dissolved substances between the roots and the shoots in the xylem and phloem, engages in pho ...

from a

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

; it takes about 18–22 days for the first leaf to grow from the rhizome. The leafy shoot lasts for about 70 days and may reach a height of 3–4 metres. Its leaves are leathery and grow around long with a central groove. The fibers of ''Etlingera elatior'' are strong.

Flower

The flower bud appears from the shoot after 30 days, it swells gradually and turns pink before blooming after more than 50 days. The

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

is made of 20-25 layers of floral

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves in size, color, shape or texture. They also lo ...

s and 3-4 layers of involuntary bracts at full bloom; it may have 90-120 true flowers inside.

Chemistry

From the leaves of ''E. elatior'', three caffeoylquinic acids, including

chlorogenic acid Chlorogenic acid (CGA) is the ester of caffeic acid and quinic acid, functioning as an intermediate in lignin biosynthesis. The term chlorogenic acids refers to a related polyphenol family of esters, including hydroxycinnamic acids ( caffeic a ...

(CGA), as well as three

flavonoid Flavonoids (or bioflavonoids; from the Latin word ''flavus'', meaning yellow, their color in nature) are a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites found in plants, and thus commonly consumed in the diets of humans. Chemically, flavonoids ...

quercitrin Quercitrin is a glycoside formed from the flavonoid quercetin and the deoxy sugar rhamnose. Austrian chemist Heinrich Hlasiwetz (1825-1875) is remembered for his chemical analysis of quercitrin. It has also been investigated as a potential d ...

, isoquercitrin and

catechin Catechin is a flavan-3-ol, a type of secondary metabolite providing antioxidant roles in plants. It belongs to the subgroup of polyphenols called flavonoids. The name of the catechin chemical family derives from ''catechu'', which is the tannic ...

, have been isolated.Chan, E.W.C. (2009). “Bioactivities and chemical constituents of leaves of some ''Etlingera'' species (Zingiberaceae) in Peninsular Malaysia”. Ph.D. thesis, Monash University, 305 p., http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/149589 Content of CGA was significantly higher than flowers of ''

Lonicera japonica ''Lonicera japonica'', known as Japanese honeysuckle and golden-and-silver honeysuckle, is a species of honeysuckle native to East Asia, including many parts of China. It is often grown as an ornamental plant, but has become an invasive species i ...

'' (Japanese honeysuckle), the commercial source. A protocol for producing a standardized herbal extract of CGA from leaves of ''E. elatior'' (40%) has been developed, compared to commercial CGA extracts from honeysuckle flowers (25%).

Use

In North Sumatra (especially among the

Karo people Karo people may refer to: *Karo people (Indonesia) *Karo people (Ethiopia) Karo (also Cherre, Kere, Kerre, Kara) is a South Omotic languages, Omotic language spoken in the Debub Omo Zone, Debub (South) Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationa ...

), the flower buds are used for a stewed fish dish called ''Arsik ikan mas'' (

Andaliman ''Zanthoxylum acanthopodium'', or andaliman, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rutaceae. Its range includes southern western China,Bangladesh, Bhutan, northern India and northeastern India, Nepal, Laos, Burma, northern Thailand, Vie ...

-spiced carp). In Bali, people use the white part of the bottom part of the trunk for cooking chilli sauce called "Sambal Bongkot", and use the flower buds to make chilli sauce called "Sambal Kecicang". In Thailand, it is eaten in a kind of

Thai salad Salads that are internationally known as Thai salads with a few exceptions fall into four main preparation methods. In Thai cuisine these are called ''yam, tam, lap'' and ''phla''. A few other dishes can also be regarded as being a salad. Overvi ...

preparation. In Malaysia, the flower is an essential ingredient in cooking the fish broth for a kind of spicy sour noodle soup called "

asam laksa Laksa (Jawi script, Jawi: ; Chinese language, Chinese: 叻沙) is a spicy noodle dish popular in Southeast Asia. Laksa consists of various types of noodles, most commonly thick rice noodles, with toppings such as Chicken as food, chicken, prawn ...

" (also known as "''Penang laksa''"), in the preparation of a kind of salad called kerabu and many other Malay dishes. The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

is also used in Indonesian cooking. In Karo, it is known as ''asam cekala'' (''asam'' meaning 'sour'), and the flower buds, but more importantly the ripe seed pods, which are packed with small black seeds, are an essential ingredient of the Karo version of '' sayur asam'', and are particularly suited to cooking fresh fish. In Sundanese, it is known as ''Honje''.

Gallery

Similar species

* ''

Alpinia galanga ''Alpinia galanga'', a plant in the ginger family, bears a rhizome used largely as an herb in Unani medicine and as a spice in Southeast Asian cookery. It is one of four plants known as "galangal". Its common names include greater galangal, le ...

'' * ''

Curcuma longa Turmeric (), or ''Curcuma longa'' (), is a flowering plant in the ginger family Zingiberaceae. It is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia that requires temperatures between and high A ...

'' * '' Etlingera fulgens'' * '' Etlingera maingayi'' * ''

Kaempferia galanga ''Kaempferia galanga'', commonly known as kencur, aromatic ginger, sand ginger, cutcherry, is a monocotyledonous plant in the ginger family, and one of four plants called galangal. It is found primarily in open areas in Indonesia, southern C ...

''^,

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3442435 elatior Taxa named by Rosemary Margaret Smith Austronesian agriculture Taxa named by William Jack (botanist)