SA Garden Catalogue: Torch Ginger

Any edible garden in Malaysia surely must include the beautiful Torch ginger. This tall plant with leafy shoots up to 5 m long, will grow in large clumps and flower throughout the year. Though sometimes, as happened in my little garden, the plant is said to be in a phase of 'gila daun' (luxuriant growth of leaves at the expense of flowers). The inflorescences, about 50 cm long, arise independently from the rhizomes and bear robust torch-like cones of pink to red bracts (hence the common name). There is also a white form, though I have only seen pictures of these, and I have yet to see the real thing.

The magical bloom of the Torch ginger (CNB 2013)

Scientific name: Etlingera elatior 
syn: Phaeomeria magnifica, P. speciosa, Nicolaia speciosa 
Common name: Torch ginger
Malay name: Kantan
Origin: South East Asia







'The flowers have an enlarged red 'lip petal' with a white or golden yellow edge. The inflorescences are sharply spicy-fragrant and used in Malaysian and Thai cuisines'. No laksa dish is complete without some Torch ginger in the kuah (fish soup/base) or as garnish. Many local salads too contain the slightly sour taste of the bunga kantan. Asam pedas and curries also taste better with the kantan buds added in. Even our ubiquitous nasi goreng is enhanced by adding shredded bunga kantan. Do check out my previous entry of 10 October 2011 on 'Food from a Garden at SA'.

The Torch ginger is easy to grow and thrives in full or partial sun. Propagation is by division of clumps. My patch of this edible plant started with a clump of rhizomes from our family home garden in Pulau Pinang.

This month of October, the weather has been very humid mostly. It often gets cloudy, and then the rains would fall, usually in the afternoon. Sometimes very heavily, causing floods in parts of the Klang valley.