Plant Geography of Gingers

Plant Geography of Gingers

The Zingiberaceae are found throughout the tropics, very few reach the subtropical zone. In Japan a few species of Alpinia and one of Zingiber are native. In the southern Himalaya the genus Roscoea, the most cold tolerant of all Gingers, is found. By far the majority of genera and species are found in tropical Asia. In the table below the distribution of genera is summarized.

Table 1. Approximate number of genera and species of Zingiberaceae worldwide.

region	genera	species
Trop. America	1	55
Trop. Africa	4	90
Asia	45	1300
Thailand	26	300

None of the 45 genera found in Asia are indigenous in Africa or the Americas. The genus Kaempferia in its former circumcription was occurring in both Asia and Africa. The African group, however, has now been segregated as the genus Siphonochilus in no way related to Kaempferia as recently shown by molecular studies. The genus Renealmia is distributed from tropical America to tropical Africa. In northern, tropical Australia some of the Asiatic genera are found.

For further information on the plant geography of gingers see also Larsen (2005) and Kress & Specht (2005).