Photo: (c) Samuel Brown, some rights reserved (CC BY), CC BY 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)

Foraged & Wild Kitchen Garden & Backyard

Native Ginger

Hornstedtia scottiana

Also known as Scott's Ginger, Native Ginger of the Wet Tropics

At a glance

Family

Zingiberaceae (the ginger family)

Type

Large clumping rainforest herb (a true wild ginger relative)

Parts used

Ripe fruit pulp and seeds

Size

2 to 5 feet of leafy cane-like growth, spreading into broad clumps

Bloom

Waxy red and cream cone-like flower spikes rise straight from the base of the clump at ground level, followed by clusters of red, ridged seed capsules

Habitat

Shaded understory of tropical rainforest, especially along creek lines in the wet tropics of northeastern Queensland and New Guinea

Acquisition

Forage

This plant in HerbSense

Key benefits

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Tart, thirst-quenching bush fruit

Lush ornamental rainforest foliage

Feeds cassowaries and native wildlife

Living link to traditional bush tucker

Traditional uses

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Long before botanists gave it a Latin name, this ginger was known to the Aboriginal peoples of the Queensland rainforest as a reliable trailside snack. Foragers would split open the ridged red capsules that cluster at the base of the plant and suck the tangy white pulp from around the seeds, prized for its sharp, refreshing sourness on a humid walk through the forest. It sits within a much larger tradition across the wet tropics and New Guinea, where wild gingers of the Hornstedtia genus were gathered as bush food rather than grown in gardens, valued for what the forest offered rather than what people planted. Cassowaries favor the same fruit, and in swallowing the seeds whole and carrying them off through the understory, they have quietly helped this ginger spread through the forest for longer than anyone has been keeping track.

How to grow & use it

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✦ Growing guide
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Pairs well with

✦Finger lime
✦Davidson's plum
✦Lemon myrtle

Substitutes

✦Finger lime
✦Davidson's plum

Choose it when

“For the forager who follows a cassowary's trail deep into the green hush of the wet tropics.”

Did you know?

The flower spikes of this ginger do not appear at the tips of the leafy canes at all. They push straight up from the rhizome at ground level, low among the leaf litter, so the bright red blooms and fruit clusters seem to be growing directly out of the forest floor.

Safety

Native ginger is eaten as a bush food, but several look-alike gingers grow nearby that are unpalatable or irritating, so correct identification by an experienced forager is essential before eating it.