Ginger is one of more than 1400 species belonging to the Zingiberaceae family.    Ginger is a slender perennial reaching 24- 39 inches in height. It has a creeping, tuberous root, and an annual stem, which is solid, round, erect, and enclosed in an imbricated membranous sheathing.  The first stems are longer than the second and latter stems and bear beautiful, fragrant flowers which are greenish-yellow and streaked with purple.  The leaves are lanceolate, acute, smooth, and dark green in color.  They are five or six inches long and about an inch wide. They alternate on the sheath of the stem, and have a prominent midrib.  The seeds are found in the rare fruiting body.  The most familiar part of the ginger plant used in commerce is the irregular shaped root, or rhizome.  The recent root is an inch or more in length, somewhat flattened on its upper and under surface, knotty, obtusetly, and irregularly branched or lobed.  Externally it is of a light ash color, and marked with circular rugae, while internally it is fleshy and yellowish-white.  Ginger can actually generate whole new plants from its budded section.  It is from these buds that ginger has been cultivated for thousands of years.  Ginger grows best in hot and moist climates, with available shade, and in soil that is rich in loam and well tilled.

Ginger is today the world’s most widely cultivated spices.  There are as many opinions as to who grows the best ginger as there are countries and regions that cultivate it.  Ginger appears in so many varieties, with an estimated fifty in India alone.