GINGER (Zingzber), a genus of plants of the natural order salaminem or zingiberaceo3, having the inner limb of the perianth destitute of lateral inner lobes, and the fertile stamen prolonged beyond the anther into an awl-shaped horn. The species are peren nial herbaceous plants, with annual stems, and 'creeping root-stocks (rhizomes); the stems produce leaves in two opposite rows; the flowers are in compact spikes with bracts. They are natives of the East Indies. The root-stocks of most of the species are used as a condiment and in medicine. The most valuable and generally used are those of the COMSION GINGER (zangiber offleinale), sometimes distinguished as the narrow-leaved ginger, which has been cultivated in the East Indies from time imme morial, and is now also cultivated in other tropical countries, particularly the West Indies and Sierra Leone, from both of which, as well as from the East Indies, its root stocks—the ginger of commerce—are a cosiderable article of export. The root-stock is about the thicknesS of a man's finger, knotty, fibrous, and fleshy when fresh. The stems which it sends up are reed-like, invested with the smooth sheaths of the leaves, generally 3 or 4 ft. high. The leaves are linear-lanceolate and smooth. The flowers are not produced on the leafy stems, but on the short leafless stems (scapes), in spikes about the size of a man's thumb, and are of a whitish color, the lip streaked with purple. The cultivation of ginger is extremely easy wherever the climate is suitable. In India it'is carried on to an elevation of 4,000 or 5,000 ft. on the Himalayas, in moist situations. The root-stock is taken up when the stems have withered, and is prepared for the market either by seething and scalding in boiling water—in order to kill it—and subsequent drying, or by scraping and washing. The mist method yields black ginger, the second white ginger; the blackest of black ginger, however, being only of a stone color, and the whitest of white ginger very far from perfectly white, unless bleaching by chloride of lime be afterwards employed, as it not unfrequently is, to improve its appearance, a process not otherwise advantageous. There is a considerable difference, however, in time original color of the root-stock in the ginger of different countries, which is supposed to be owing to difference in the varieties cultivated. The uses of
ginger both in medicine, as a stimulant and carminative, and in domestic economy, as a condiment, are too well known to require partiCular notice. Its qualities depend very much on a pale yellow volatile oil, lighter than water, called oil of ginger. It contains also a considerable quantity of starch.—Candied ginger, or preserved ginger, consists of the young root-stocks preserved in sugar, and is now imported in considerable quantity from China, as well as from the East Indies and from the West Indies. It is a delicious sweetmeat, and is useful also as a stomachie.—Essenee of ginger, much used for flavor ing, is in reality a tincture, prepared of ginger and alcohol.—Sirup of ginger is used chiefly by druggists for flavoring—Ginger tea is a domestic remedy very useful iu cases of flatulence, and is an infusion of ginger in boiling water.—Ginger-beer (q.v.) is a well known beverage, flavored with ginger.—Ginger wine (q.v.) is a cheap liquor flavored with ginger.—Ginger was known to the Romans, and is said by Pliny to have been brought from Arabia.—Another species of ginger is ZERWIBET (ztngiber zerumbet), called broad-leaved ginger, cultivated in Java, and of which the root-stock is sometimes erroneously called round zedoary. The root-stock is much thicker than that of common ginger, and is less pungent.—The root-stock of the CASSIIMUNAR (zingiber eassumunar), sometimes called yellow zedoary, has a camphor-like smell, and a bitter aromatic taste. It acquired a high reputation as a medicine in England and throughout Europe about the close of the 17th c., but having been extolled not merely as a stimulant and stomachic, but as possessing virtues which did not iu reality belong to it, it soon sunk into oblivion.—The root-stock of the MiooA (zingiber mioga) is less pungent than ginger, and is much used in Japan.—Cattle sent to graze in the jungles of Northern India, during the rainy season, are supplied with the root-stocks of a species of ginger zingiber capitatum), to preserve their health.—The root of Aristolochia (q.v.) Canadense is some times called Indian ginger or wild ginger in North America, and is used as a substitute for ginger. It has a grateful aromatic odor and taste, and is stimulant, tonic, and diaphoretic.