GINGER, the rhizome or underground stem of Zingiber offi cinale (family Zingiberaceae) , a perennial reed-like plant growing from 3 to 4f t. high. The flowers and leaves are borne on separate stems, those of the former being shorter than those of the latter and averaging from 6 to rain. The flowers themselves are borne at the apex of the stems in dense ovate-oblong cone-like spikes from 2 to 3in. long, composed of obtuse strongly-imbricated bracts with membranous margins, each bract enclosing a single small sessile flower. The leaves are al ternate and arranged in two rows, bright green, smooth, tapering at both ends, with very short stalks and long sheaths which stand away from the stem and end in two small rounded auricles. The plant rarely flowers and the fruit is unknown. Though not found wild, it is considered with good reason to be a native of the warmer parts of Asia, over which it has been cultivated from an early period and the rhizome im ported into England. From Asia the plant has spread into the West Indies, South America, western tropical Africa, and Australia.
The use of ginger as a spice has been known from very early times; it was supposed by the Greeks and Romans to be a prod uct of southern Arabia, and was received by them by way of the Red Sea ; in India it has also been known from a very remote period.
Ginger is known in commerce in two distinct forms, coated and uncoated ginger, i.e., having or wanting the epidermis. For the first, the pieces, called "races" or "hands," from their irregular palmate form, are washed and simply dried in the sun. In this form ginger presents a brown, more or less irregularly wrinkled or striated surface, and when broken shows a dark brownish fracture, hard, and sometimes horny and resinous. To produce uncoated ginger the rhizomes are washed, scraped and sun-dried, and are often subjected to bleaching, either from the fumes of burning sulphur or by immersion for a short time in a solution of chlorin ated lime. The whitewashed appearance that much of the ginger has, as seen in the shops, is due to the fact of its being washed in whiting and water, or even coated with sulphate of lime. Uncoated ginger, as seen in trade, varies from single joints an inch or less in length to flattish irregularly branched pieces of several joints, the "races" or "hands," and from 3 to din. long; each branch has a depression at its summit showing the former attachment of a leafy stem. The colour, when not whitewashed, is a pale buff ; it is somewhat rough or fibrous, breaking with a short mealy frac ture, and presenting on the surfaces of the broken parts numerous short bristly fibres.
The principal constituents of ginger are starch, volatile oil (to which the characteristic odour of the spice is due) and resin (to which is attributed its pungency). Its chief use is as a condiment or spice, but as an aromatic and stomachic medicine it is also used internally. The rhizomes, collected in a young green state, washed, scraped and preserved in syrup, form a delicious pre serve, which is largely exported both from the West Indies and from China. Cut up into pieces like lozenges and preserved in sugar, ginger also forms an agreeable sweetmeat.