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  Alpinia caerulea - red back native ginger

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  Alpinia caerulea - red-back native ginger

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  Alpinia caerulea - red-back native ginger

The native ginger is an edible perennial herb, and is a good bush tucker plant. It has broad sword shaped green leaves with attractive red leaf reverses. The fragrant white flowers are followed by blue berries. The new leaf shoots and berries have a mild ginger flavour and can be used in cooking, or eaten fresh from the plant. It forms a clump to 2 metres tall, and is hardy. Likes a lightly shaded to full shade spot, and can be used indoors. Likes water in dry spells. Grows from an underground rhizome, so the plant can be cut back hard if it looks untidy. Frost will damage the leaves, but it should reshoot once the danger of frost is over, though hard and prolonged frost could kill the rhizome.