Introduction GINGERS of Thailand

Gingers are classified as the plant family Zingiberaceae, while the commercial Ginger is the cultivated species Zingiber officinale. During the last decades there has been a growing interest in studying these plants among botanists, amateurs and commercial growers of tropical plants, not least in Thailand. Gingers have an attraction like that of the Orchids, even if most of them, as opposed to the orchids, have very ephemeral flowers but, instead, often conspicuously coloured floral bracts. It is the hope that with this book interest in these unique tropical flowers may be further stimulated and that a better understanding of conserving the unique and endangered Zingiberaceous flora of Thailand may spread.

Thailand has one of the richest Ginger floras in the world. About 50 genera of Zingiberaceae are at present known to science, 26 of these are found as native within the borders of the Kingdom. Today we know c. 1400 species of Gingers worldwide, about 300 have so far been found in Thailand, both numbers will most certainly rise. The six-times-larger Malesian area, including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, The Philippines and Papua New Guinea, has less than three times as many species. This is due to Thailand being situated at the crossroads of distributional zones. From north to south the country ranges from c. 19° to 5° N or over 1500 km. In the north of Thailand the southern Himalayan element, with subtropical species, finds niches at high altitudes. Also in the North, a Chinese element is represented with species from Yunnan, the southern tropical province of China. Towards the northeast, in the Nan Province, the northern Indochinese flora becomes evident and towards the West the Burmese flora “flows” over the border. The northeastern part of the country is a dry plateau over which several old plateau mountains, consisting of sandstone, rise to over 1000 m altitude. These table mountains harbour a very special flora with numerous endemic species. Finally, Thailand is crossed by one of the significant plant geographic dividing lines in Southeast Asia, the border between the deciduous forests of the seasonal monsoon climate and the evergreen, humid forests of the Malay Peninsula. This line runs across the Peninsula at the Isthmus of Kra from Ranong to Chumphon. The land south of this line harbours a flora related to the peninsular Malaysia.

It is astonishing how many new species, even undescribed genera, of Gingers, that have been collected in recent years, particularly in the areas bordering Myanmar, Laos and Malaysia. On the other hand it is understandable as these regions, up to recently, have beetl almost inaccessible partly because of political situations and partly on account of the lack of roads.