Curcuma longa (turmeric)

Japanese name: ターメリック
Scientific name: Curcuma longa

[Overview]
A perennial about 1 m tall.
The rhizome is branched, thick, yellow and fragrant.
The part that looks like a stem is a pseudostem formed by overlapping leaf sheaths.
The leaves are simple and alternate in two rows, oblong, 30–90 cm long and 15–20 cm wide, with pointed tips and no hairs.
A spike 12–20 cm long emerges from the center of the leaves, densely set with bracts.
The bracts at the top of the inflorescence are large and white to pale green, sometimes tinged with reddish purple, while those lower down are pale green.
The flowers emerge from between the bracts; the corolla is white and the upper lobe is hood-shaped.
One of the staminodes spreads out like a lip and is yellow, with a deep yellow band in the center.

[History]
It has been cultivated in India since before the Common Era.
There are various theories about when it arrived in Japan.

[Uses]
The rhizome is used as a raw material for curry powder, as a coloring for takuan pickles, as a dye, and as a crude drug.

[Cultivation]
Propagate by division.
It prefers sunny, well-drained, fertile soil.
During the growing season, water thoroughly when the soil surface dries.
It is sensitive to cold, so in winter dig up the rhizomes and store them.
Aphids may occur.

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