The butterfly ginger is a plant that deserves a place in any tropical themed outdoor garden. It is an unusual ginger that bears flowers that give off an overpowering, sweet fragrance. If you are looking for a plant to fill up that shady spot in your fragrant garden, the butterfly ginger is a suitable candidate. Unlike many tropical, fragrant flowering shrubs that require a location with full sunlight to grow and flower, the butterfly ginger, instead, thrives in such a location.

3 commonly seen butterfly gingers available in local nurseries: 

      
(From Left to Right): H. coronarium var. coronarium, H. coronarium var. chrysoleucum and an unidentified orange-flowered Hedychium

As the name suggests, the flower-shape of this ginger resembles that of a butterfly with its wings spread open. Butterfly gingers are botanically known as Hedychium coronarium and are expectedly members of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, which is native to the Himalayan region and southern China. The white butterfly ginger is the national flower of Cuba.

A colony of butterfly gingers at the Singapore Botanic Gardens

Butterfly gingers are herbaceous plants that can grow up to a stately height of 2m. The lush, olive green leaves, shaped like a longer dagger are usually smooth on the upper side and may be slightly hairy below. They are arranged on opposite sides of the stem and can grow up to 60cm long and 10cm wide. A dense clump of leafy shoots can result as they continuously rise from the rhizome that creeps on the ground surface. From afar, a colony of healthy butterfly gingers can even be mistakened for a cornfield at times!

When a stem matures, an inflorescence that looks like a green cone with numerous overlapping scales (which are actually bracts), will appear at the end of the stem. Tube-like flower buds will then peek out from in between the scales, starting from the base of cone. The petals of the flowers subsequently unfurl, to release their heady perfume and the dark-coloured stamen resembling a butterfly’s antenna would be displayed prominently.

Unfortunately, the flowers only last a day. Upon successful pollination, an oval-shaped fruit will form. The fruit then turns into a bright orange colour when ripe and will eventually split open to reveal seeds encapsulated inside bright, red flesh.

The interesting looking inflorescence of the butterfly ginger

3 different butterfly gingers have been spotted on sale in local nurseries. The most commonly seen species, H. coronarium var. coronarium, produces large, pure white flowers. Another butterfly ginger, which bears white flowers with an intense yellow spot on its lip, is H. coronarium var. chrysoleucum. It is not to be confused with 2 other similar looking species, namely, H. flavescens (syn. H. coronarium var. flavescens) and H. flavum. The 2 latter species have flowers that have a similar yellow spot on the lip, but their flowers are very pale yellow. There is a variety with peach-coloured flowers that is occasionally available for sale but its identity is not known, which could well be a hybrid.

The ripe fruit of the butterfly ginger splits open to reveal the seeds that are covered in a red coloured aril

In the garden, butterfly gingers are best grown in groups. In the tropics, they are perennials that will provide constant flushes of fragrant flowers. Butterfly gingers are all terrestrials and would prefer to be grown in well-drained, fertile soil that is rich in organic matter. Sufficient water to make the soil moist and the area where the butterfly ginger is grown should preferably be mulched to conserve moisture and keep the roots cool. Fertilising the plant regularly with generous amounts of organic compost or organic fertiliser will help to condition the often encountered clayed soil that we have here locally. After flowering, the entire spent inflorescence can be cut away. The still green stem can be left since it can still photosynthetise and provide food for the plant. Remember to remove old stems when they start to turn yellow or when the clump appears to be overcrowded.

    
Left : A happy butterfly ginger should have dark green leaves that are open

Right : A sign of underwatering and overexposure to direct sunlight - curled and yellowing leaves

In general, butterfly gingers appreciate a preferably shady and not too windy location. Constant air movement which reduces air humidity can cause the plant to dry out quickly. Butterfly gingers should never be exposed to the much more intense, direct sunshine in the tropics for prolonged periods. Plants that have been dehydrated react by curling up their leaves and those that have received too much light will exhibit sickly-looking, yellow leaves. The leaves of the butterfly gingers can be attacked by grasshoppers and leaf rolling caterpillars.

Propagation of plants can be most easily achieved by division although seeds are also sometimes available by spliting clumps into sections with at least 3 to 4 shoots. Leaves may be trimmed away to reduce dehydration of the plant.

Clumps can be divided to give more plants

The butterfly ginger has been used as a popular ornamental plant in the garden. Because the flowers are fragrant, it is not surprising that the flowers have been used to make perfumes, using the oil extracted from them. In tropical Hawaii, the flowers are also threaded to make leis or perched singly in a similar way like how Plumeria flowers are worn on the ear. The butterly ginger’s rhizome has numerous medicinal uses in traditional medicine for the treatment of tonsilitis, infected nostrils and fever. The leaves are also used to reduce pain and swelling in still and sore joints.

Its flower buds are actually edible and can be used like a vegetable. The flower buds are best picked early in the morning and stored in the refrigerator until they are ready to be used. The buds can be tossed in your salad for a spicy, gingery zest and intriguing, succulent texture. They can also be added to soups and stir-fried, or even be infused in hot water, together with Chinese tea leaves to add the unique butterfly ginger fragrance to your cuppa’ tea.

Flower buds of the butterfly ginger that can actually be eaten

- by Wilson Wong and Lynnette Terh

My sister is buried under a Red Flame tree (Delonix regia) in Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa. It is near the huge kapok or Cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra) where slaves or their descendants who returned from the United States to Africa were freed after slavery was abolished in America.

My father, Dr Kenneth Alan Longman (who took the photo from a drawing) believed in eternal life in a very practical way. He buried my adopted sister Sonie and planted that tree over her grave. She was only one and a half years old when she died of malaria.

The old Cotton-tree (Ceiba pentandra) in Freedown, Sierra Leone, under which slaves were freed

I recall thinking aloud while watching my Dad plant that tree back then - ”How many seeds are there in a Red Flame pod? About 15, maybe 20?”

Dad was right, there are an infinite number of seeds in a Red Flame pod. Each seed has a new tree inside it and each new tree in turn, had thousands of new seeds. That is the meaning of eternal life to my dad - and my sister Sonie was going to be part of that tree.

Both my Dad and Mum were cremated and their remains are now part of trees in the same way. Gardeners in the truest sense - being truly part of their garden. When I reflect on my own passion for trees and nature, there is a very simple test which the Bidayuh people of Sarawak uses to see whether a child is ready to be “set free” to go into the forest alone:

“If a tree falls in the forest, who knows what sound it will make?”

Slavery was abolished for the same reason as my Dad wanted to be part of a tree, a garden, or even a forest - the human spirit yearns to be set free.

- by Simon Longman

Not long ago, mankind lived in harmony with nature. Population explosions and modern lifestyles snatched that peace from us and left us trying to increase production of food.

We invented new ways and came upon chemical agriculture. No doubt by using agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides, growth hormones and so on, we solved our short-term goal but left a dangerous legacy for our future generations.

The turnaround from scarcity to abundance over the past century has been achieved at the expense of increasing input of chemicals and with little thought of tomorrow.

The practice of replacing organic matter on the land has widely been phased out. The result is that the soil is becoming lifeless and in many cases, disappears into the sea. The traditional practice of mixing and rotating crops has also been abandoned for short-term profit, with the result that pests and diseases build up to uncontrollable proportions.

Today, modern lifestyle puts a premium of eating quickly, and gorging on fast food. We forgo nourishment in favor of convenience. Our eating habits support a method of agriculture that is ecologically unsound, dangerous to the soil and responsible for leaving harmful chemical residues in our food.

Few of us think about the intimate connection between food and the quality of our lives. Food nourishes our body, our souls. The safest and most effective way to obtain them is through plants. Plants produce vitamins and minerals in their most digestible form.

Recent studies have shown that organic foods have higher nutritional value - trace minerals, vitamins, photochemicals - than commercially grown foods.

There just aren’t any easy shortcuts to good health and you owe it to yourself to eat right.

- by Trijanto Suriadi

The “midnight tree” does not exist, except perhaps in kids’ minds, and some adults’ nightmares. Recalling a story book she’d read, our daughter Min at age five had, for instance, pointed to a knobbly, gnarled tree in our neighbourhood which had spooked her during evening strolls as her “midnight tree”.

In our garden, there are also such “sinister” plants.

Looks-wise in the scary flower league, nothing come close to the Bat Lily or Tacca integrifolia, which is magnificently evil with its purplish-black, bat wing-like flower with long, thin, white appendages.  The Tacca’s strange flowers have also earned it other sinister names like “Devil Flower” and “Devil’s Tongue”.

Old trees, especially giant banyans or Ficus bengalensis, with their spectacular aerial roots, are also thought to house spirits, and throughout this region, offerings or altars are sometimes placed nearby such trees.

Another sure conservation-stopper in the evening will be to remark to your guests that you have the “prince of darkness” or “black magic” in you garden…only to reassure them that these are just some scary names for beautiful, deep-red Heliconia.

- by Thien

For the full story, get a copy of A Gardener’s Log by Thien, available at all leading bookstores in Singapore.  All royalties will go to Spark, Society for the Promotion of AHDHD Research and Knowledge.