In the Kew _Bulletin_ for January an interesting account is given of
the identification of the plant yielding the rhizome employed to make
the well-known Chinese preserved ginger. As long ago as 1878 Dr. E.
Percival Wright, of Trinity College, Dublin, called the attention of
Mr. Thiselton Dyer to the fact that the preserved ginger has very much
larger rhizomes than _Zingiber officinale_, and that it was quite
improbable that it was the product of that plant. The difficulty in
identifying the plant arose from the fact that, like many others
cultivated for the root or tuber, it rarely flowers. The first
flowering plant was sent to Kew from Jamaica by Mr. Harris, the
superintendent of the Hope Garden there. During the past year the
plant has flowered both at Dominica in the West Indies and in the
Botanic Garden at Hong-Kong. Mr. C. Ford, the director of the Botanic
Garden at Hong-Kong, has identified the plant as _Alpinia Galanga_,
the source of the greater or Java galangal root of commerce. Mr.
Watson, of Kew, appears to have been the first to suggest that the
Chinese ginger plant is probably a species of _Alpinia_, and possibly
identical with the Siam ginger plant, which was described by Sir J.
Hooker in the _Botanical Magazine_ (tab. 6,946) in 1887 as a new
species under the name of _Alpinia zingiberina_. Mr. J.G. Baker, in
working up the Scitamineæ for the "Flora of British India," arrived at
the conclusion that it is not distinct from the _Alpinia Galanga_,
Willd. The Siam and Chinese gingers are therefore identical, and both
are the produce of _Alpinia Galanga_, Willd.
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