Indonesian Wax Ginger

In the rainforests of tropical Queensland and New Guinea, this cane-forming relative of true ginger has long been a familiar sight along creek banks and forest edges, its glowing red cone unmistakable against the green understory. Aboriginal communities in its native range are known to have chewed the moist inner pith of the young canes to relieve thirst on long walks through the bush, much as one might suck on a piece of sugarcane. The tender growing shoots, cut low and peeled back to the pale core, have also served as an occasional bush vegetable, cooked or eaten raw in the way that other gingers and their kin have long fed forest travelers. The plant's fruit and seed heads are prized by cassowaries, and in gardens the same fiery cone that once caught a forager's eye now catches a florist's.