Species
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Alpinia galanga (L.) Willd.

Galanga, Greater Galangal, Isen, Langkueh

Climate known 20 photographs Tropical foliage plant
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Alpinia galanga, a plant in the ginger family, bears a rhizome used largely as an herb in Unani medicine and as a spice in Southeast Asian cookery. It is one of four plants known as "galangal". Its common names include greater galangal, lengkuas, and blue ginger.

Text from Wikipedia, “Alpinia galanga”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Alpinia

Alpinia is a genus of flowering plants in the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. Species are native to Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands, where they occur in tropical and subtropical climates. Several species are cultivated as ornamental plants.

Text from Wikipedia, “Alpinia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Zingiberaceae
Described by
(L.) Willd.
Native to
China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast +11
Wild records
266 in range· 117 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Jul, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1845mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 273 mm (CHELSA)
Light
23–33DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Alpinia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (April to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1845 mm a year, wettest June at 273 mm, driest December at 33 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 33 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 11.9 °C habitat night).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Alpinia alba (Retz.) Roscoe; Alpinia bifida Warb.; Alpinia carnea Griff.; Alpinia galanga subsp. pyramidata (Blume) K.Schum.; Alpinia galanga var. galanga and 17 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Alpinia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (April to September at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1435 mm of 1845 mm) falls in April to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 26.4 °C against a yearly mean of 23.6 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to March.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1845 mm a year, wettest June at 273 mm, driest December at 33 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1845 mm a year at the habitat, 1435 mm of it April to September. Wettest month June at 273 mm, driest December at 33 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1372 mm to 3315 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 33 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 33 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 41).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 11.9 °C habitat night).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 11.9 °C, the absolute minimum 6.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 13.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells 7.8 °C to 23.0 °C), warmest day 29.7 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12 °C. The habitat figure, the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER), is 11.9 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a tropical foliage plant (grouped by the genus Alpinia, which is reliably one kind of plant) is 12 °C, which is higher, and the floor rule takes the higher.

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 61 to 66% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 22 °C in Jan to 30 °C in Jul; mean night from 13 °C in Jan to 24 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1845 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 235 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 6.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.3 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°20°30°40°36.3° 99th-percentile day (undated)6.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 23–33RH 61–66 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 235 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C22 / 16–2923 / 18–3125 / 21–3228 / 24–3329 / 26–3129 / 26–3130 / 27–3130 / 26–3129 / 26–3128 / 24–3025 / 22–2922 / 18–29
Night °C13 / 8–2315 / 10–2317 / 13–2420 / 17–2523 / 19–2524 / 20–2624 / 20–2624 / 20–2623 / 19–2521 / 17–2518 / 13–2414 / 9–23
Rain mm41 / 7–31161 / 16–28287 / 33–299157 / 63–290236 / 151–348273 / 139–448269 / 154–440267 / 156–459233 / 129–402129 / 61–33359 / 32–34733 / 12–314
DLI24 / 16–3327 / 17–3731 / 21–4033 / 24–4132 / 28–3731 / 27–3533 / 27–3732 / 27–3530 / 27–3529 / 24–3425 / 20–3123 / 18–31
RH %62 / 55–7064 / 54–6964 / 53–6965 / 56–6966 / 62–6966 / 63–7166 / 63–7166 / 63–7165 / 63–7064 / 60–6963 / 57–6961 / 55–70

Each figure is the median across the 235 grid cells holding the 255 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1342:6012 (22.875, 120.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 6.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 11.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.3 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 235 distinct grid cells holding the 255 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1342:6012 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 23.00_120.625, lapse-corrected -365 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 149 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeChina South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Assam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Malaya, Philippines, Sumatera· introduced: Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka
Kew's description“rhizomatous geophyte” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker23.537, 120.532 · in the densest population, 95 records (36% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 266 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 117 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2278 km away. 44 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 11 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 266 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Alpinia galangaAlpinia galangaAlpinia galangaAlpinia galangaAlpinia galangaAlpinia galangaAlpinia galangaAlpinia galanga

Photographs: Jacy Chen, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (8).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Alpinia galanga, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Antimicrobial Properties and Mechanism of Action of Some Plant Extracts Against Food Pathogens and Spoilage Microorganisms
Faraja Gonelimali, Jiheng Lin, Wenhua Miao, Jinghu Xuan (2018) · Frontiers in Microbiology
Antidiabetic Potential of Medicinal Plants and Their Active Components
Bahare Salehi, Athar Ata, N. V. Anil Kumar, Farukh Sharopov (2019) · Biomolecules
Plant Secondary Metabolites as Defense Tools against Herbivores for Sustainable Crop Protection
Pratap A. Divekar, N Srinivasa, Bhupendra Adinath Divekar, Rajeev Kumar (2022) · International Journal of Molecular Sciences
The Role of Reactive Oxygen Species in the Pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and Huntington’s Disease: A Mini Review
Shanmugam Manoharan, Gilles J. Guillemin, Rajagopal Selladurai Abiramasundari, Musthafa Mohamed Essa (2016) · Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity
Antimicrobial Activity of Essential Oils: A 1976-1986 Literature Review. Aspects of the Test Methods
Alexander Janßen, J. Scheffer, A. Baerheim Svendsen (1987) · Planta Medica
Effects of a ginger extract on knee pain in patients with osteoarthritis
Roy D. Altman, K. C. Marcussen (2001) · Arthritis & Rheumatism
Essential Oils: Sources of Antimicrobials and Food Preservatives
Abhay K. Pandey, Pradeep Kumar, Pooja Singh, Nijendra N. Tripathi (2017) · Frontiers in Microbiology
A Comprehensive Review on the Therapeutic Potential of Curcuma longa Linn. in Relation to its Major Active Constituent Curcumin
Shivkanya Fuloria, Jyoti Mehta, Aditi Chandel, Mahendran Sekar (2022) · Frontiers in Pharmacology
Indigenous Use and Ethnopharmacology of Medicinal Plants in Far-West Nepal
Ripu M. Kunwar, Yadav Uprety, C. Burlakoti, Chotte L. Chowdhary (2009) · Ethnobotany Research and Applications
TNF: A master switch for inflammation to cancer
Gautam Sethi (2008) · Frontiers in bioscience
Medicinal plants in India
Anita Narang (2019) · International Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Research

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Alpinia 2 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 39 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.