Common Turmeric

The rhizomes, which are yellow inside, are powdered, used as a condiment and for medicinal purposes. Also used as a yellow dye.

Used medicinally and for spice.

Up to 1.5 m. Leaves petiolate, lamina up to c. 50 cm long, lanceolate. Inflorescence borne centrally to the leaf tuft. All bracts greenish white, occasionally pink tinged. Flowers yellow-white.

Plants ca. 1 m tall. Rhizomes many branched, orange or bright yellow, cylindric, aromatic; roots tuberous at tip. Petiole 20--45 cm; leaf blade green, oblong or elliptic, 30--45(--90) × 15--18 cm, glabrous, base attenuate, apex shortly acuminate. Inflorescences terminal on pseudostems; peduncle 12--20 cm; spike cylindric, 12--18 × 4--9 cm; fertile bracts pale green, ovate or oblong, 3--5 cm, apex obtuse; coma bracts spreading, white and green, sometimes tinged reddish purple, apex acute. Calyx white, 0.8--1.2 cm, puberulent, apex unequally 3-toothed. Corolla pale yellow; tube to 3 cm; lobes deltoid, 1--1.5 cm, central one larger, apex mucronate. Lateral staminodes shorter than labellum. Labellum yellowish with central, yellow band, obovate, 1.2--2 cm. Anther spurred at base. Ovary sparsely hairy. Fl. Aug.

Distribution: Cultivated throughout the tropics. Cultivated in many parts of the Punjab and Hazara in Pakistan.

Cultivated. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan [native origin unknown; cultivated throughout tropical Asia].

Curcuma domestica Valeton.