A tropical evergreen with tall clumps of ovate to lance late leaves growing from ginger-scented rhizomes to a height of 1.2 m (4 ft). Flowers are pale green and white. A officinarum, lesser galangal, is the more important species for both medicinal and culinary purposes.<\/p>\n
Very similar to ginger, this plant has a long history as a spice and medicinal plant and has been used in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine since ancient times. \u2018Galangal\u2019 comes from the Arabic word Khalanjan, which could in turn be derived from a Chinese word meaning \u201cmild ginger\u201d. Known in Europe since the 9th century, it was probably introduced by Arab or Greek physicians.<\/p>\n
Both species are used as a ginger-like flavoring in Thai and southeast Asian cookery.<\/p>\n
A galanga, greater galangal, is a larger plant, growing to 2 m (6 ft.), and has a less marked ginger aroma.<\/p>\n
It can be grown only in climates with high humidity and minimum temperatures of 15-18\u00b0C (59-64\u00b0F). Needs well-drained soil and partial shade. Propagated by division of the rhizomes when new shoots appear.<\/p>\n
A good digestive, it also has antibacterial and antifungal properties, is used for feverish illnesses and fungal infections. A galanga is considered less effective medicinally.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A tropical evergreen with tall clumps of ovate to lance late leaves growing from ginger-scented rhizomes to a height of 1.2 m (4 ft). Flowers are pale green and white. A officinarum, lesser galangal, is the more important species for both medicinal and culinary purposes. History and traditions Very similar to ginger, this plant has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,105,110,98,127,117,148,147,114,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-z","category-loamy-soil","category-neutral-soil","category-partial","category-perennial","category-red","category-rhizomes","category-root","category-summer","category-white"],"meta_box":{"botanical-name":"Alpinia officinarum","common-names":"Galangal, Blue ginger, Languas galanga, Lengkuas, Thai ginger, Siamese ginger","family":"zingiberaceae","flower_bloom_time":[{"term_id":114,"name":"Summer","slug":"summer","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":114,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":112,"count":163,"filter":"raw"}],"flower_color":[{"term_id":117,"name":"Red","slug":"red","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":117,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":116,"count":29,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":118,"name":"White","slug":"white","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":118,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":116,"count":113,"filter":"raw"}],"plant_life_cycle":[{"term_id":127,"name":"Perennial","slug":"perennial","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":127,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":84,"count":133,"filter":"raw"}],"plant_types":[{"term_id":148,"name":"Rhizomes","slug":"rhizomes","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":148,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":88,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":147,"name":"Root","slug":"root","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":147,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":88,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"soil_ph":[{"term_id":110,"name":"Neutral Soil","slug":"neutral-soil","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":110,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":108,"count":158,"filter":"raw"}],"soil_type":[{"term_id":105,"name":"Loamy Soil","slug":"loamy-soil","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":105,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":101,"count":179,"filter":"raw"}],"sun_exposure":[{"term_id":98,"name":"Partial","slug":"partial","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":98,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":96,"count":126,"filter":"raw"}],"usda_hardiness_zones":"Zone: 10 - 11","region_or_country_of_origin":"Indonesia","plant_mature_size":"
Height: 6 feet<\/p>\n"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}