Siphonochilus aethiopicus
species of plant
Siphonochilus aethiopicus, commonly known as African ginger, is a species of flowering plant in the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is used in traditional medicine in sub-Saharan Africa, and is critically endangered due to over-harvesting.
Description
Siphonochilus aethiopicus is a flowering decidious plant in the family Zingiberacae, the ginger family. It was first described by Georg August Schweinfurth and received its current name from Brian Laurence Burtt. The genus name Siphonochilus comes from siphoni and chilus, both meaning tube, referring to the shape of the flower, while aethiopicus is an archaic word for Africa.
Siphonochilus aethiopicus is native to west and south Africa. Due to over-harvesting, it is currently found at around 10% of its historic range. It can be found in woodland, wooded grassland, and bushland.
It has large light green lance-shaped leaves. The South African variety has white or pink flowers, while the Nigerian variety has purple flowers.
“Siphonochilus aethiopicus” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Siphonochilus, aethiopicus and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15334907. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Siphonochilus aethiopicus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.