Black Ginger

Black ginger is an important traditional medicine and its rhizome has been used as a folk medicine for many centuries. Oil extracted from the tubers may have anti-malarial, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial properties. Tubers are used to treat many diseases and conditions. Black ginger tea is widely used by Hmong ethnic populations and is believed to have many health-giving properties. Traditionally, Hmong people carried a tuber at all times when traveling far from home. They drink black ginger tea when tired from hard work to cleanse the blood and act as a restorative. Kaempferia parviflora is a tuberous or rhizomatous herb, 6–10 cm tall, with 2–8 spiral to alternately arranged leaves. Each plant produces numerous elliptic tuberous roots with purple or black flesh. The leaves are ovate or elliptic, 4–7 cm wide, 7–11 cm long, with acute or acuminate apices, cuneate bases, truncate or semi-cordate, entire margins, glabrous upper surfaces, hairy underneath. Petioles are about 15 cm long, green, and glabrous. The leaf sheaths are triangular, about 5 cm long, and membranous.