Alpinia zerumbet is a Chinese

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 perennial plant

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 of the ginger family

Family

In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...

 (Zingiberaceae

Zingiberaceae

Zingiberaceae, or the Ginger family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of aromatic perennial herbs with creeping horizontal or tuberous rhizomes, comprising ca. 52 genera and more than 1300 species, distributed throughout tropical Africa, Asia, and the Americas.Many species are important...

).

Characteristics

Native to eastern Asia, this plant is a rhizomatous, ever green tropical perennial that grows in upright clumps 8–10 feet tall in tropical climates. It bears funnel-formed flowers. Flowers have white or pink perianths

Petal

Petals are modified leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They often are brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. Together, all of the petals of a flower are called a corolla. Petals are usually accompanied by another set of special leaves called sepals lying...

 with yellow labella

Labellum

Labellum is the Latin diminutive of labium, meaning lip. These are anatomical terms used descriptively in biology, for example in Entomology and botany.-Botany:...

 with red spots and stripes. There are three stamen

Stamen

The stamen is the pollen producing reproductive organ of a flower...

s, but only one has pollen

Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder containing the microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce the male gametes . Pollen grains have a hard coat that protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants or from the male cone to the...

. There is one pistil. The fruit is globose with many striations. In more typical conditions, it reaches 4–8 feet tall in the green house, and 3–4 feet tall, as a house plant. It is called a shell ginger or shell flower most commonly, because its individual pink flowers, especially when in bud, resemble sea shells.

Cultivation

Alpinia zerumbet is best grown in rich medium-wet, to wet well drained soils in full sun to part shade. Afternoon shade in hot summer climates, is recommended. Indoors, the plant must have bright light and humid conditions. Flowering rarely occurs before the second year.

Uses

The plant's long leaf blades are still used for wrapping zongzi

Zongzi

Zongzi is a traditional Chinese food, made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves. They are cooked by steaming or boiling. Laotians, Thais, and Cambodians also have similar traditional dishes. In the Western world, they are also known as rice...

. In Okinawa, Japan, A. zerumbet is known as Getto (ゲットウ).Its leaves are sold as herbal tea and are also used to flavour noodles and wrap rice cakes. Its tea has hypotensive, diuretic and antiulcerogenic properties. Decoction of leaves has been used during bathing to alleviate fevers.. The leaves and rhizomes have been proven effective against HIV-1 integrase and neuraminidase enzymes,
and has also shown anti-diabetic effect through inhibitions of formation of advanced glycation end products . Besides, the antioxidant activities of different parts of Alpinia zerumbet has already been reported .