Flora of New Zealand Series

Wild Ginger

Rhizomes thick, fleshy. stems stout, erect, leafy, (1)-2-3 m high. Leaves to 50 × 10 cm, lanceolate, sessile, tapered to acuminate apex, under surface with scattered fine soft white hairs; ligule 3.5-5 cm long, membranous, brownish, finely pubescent. Inflorescence c 15 × 10 cm, compact, cone-like, with broad overlapping fimbriate bracts. Flowers fragrant, off-white to cream, 3 per bract. Calyx 3.5-5 cm long, with scattered hairs except at centre and with a tuft of hairs at tip. Corolla-tube yellowish, c. 7 cm long; lobes narrow, c. 3.5 cm long, yellow-green. Lateral staminodia white to cream, c. 4 cm long, oblong-lanceolate. Labellum white to cream, often with yellow patch near base, c. 4 × 3cm, bilobed at apex, staminal-filament white to cream, top of anther protruding slightly beyond lip. Fruit not seen.

N. North Auckland; Auckland-Auckland city, Coromandel peninsula (west side). On roadsides and stream banks.

(Madagascar, India)

First record: Anon. 1912: 373, as H. coronarium Koen.

First collection: Auckland, Kirk 1381, Undated [pre-1898] (WELT).

FL. (2)-5-6.

Also treated in N.Z. as H. coronarium Koenig; H. flavum auct. non Roxb.; H. oblongum auct. non K. Schum.; H. coronarium Koenig var. subditum (Turrill) Naik.

Orchard (Rec. Auckland Inst. Mus. 10, 1973, 109-117) gave a detailed account of the two spp. of Hedychium adventive in N.Z. He used the name H. coronarium var. subditum (based on H. subditum Turrill) for the sp. with cone-like inflorescence, pointing out that it was known in N.Z. for a long time as H. flavum auct. non Roxb.  Lourteig (Adansonia 12, 1972, 121-127) considered that H. subditum was a synonym of H. flavescens. Orchard (N.Z.J. Bot. 16, 1978, 287-289) accepts Lourteig' s treatment and outlines the nomenclatural history of the whole H. coronarium complex.