European Wild Ginger

Did you know

• The bell-shaped flowers bloom at ground level, hidden beneath the glossy kidney-shaped leaves where they are pollinated by ground-crawling insects.
• Though called wild ginger, it is unrelated to culinary ginger but was used as a ginger substitute in medieval European cooking.
• The seeds have a fleshy appendage called an elaiosome that attracts ants, which carry the seeds to their nests and help disperse them.
• European wild ginger was used in traditional medicine as an emetic and was an ingredient in some snuff preparations.
• It forms a beautiful dense carpet of evergreen foliage in shady woodland conditions where few other plants thrive.

Color meanings

Uses

• ground cover
• shade gardens
• woodland gardens
• traditional medicine