• Family : ZINGIBERACEAE
  (Ginger Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : HALDI FAMILY (हल्दी फैमिली)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : ZINGIBERACEAE
• Basionym : Alpinia neesana J.Graham
• Synonym(s) : Zingiber macrostachyum Dalzell
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Zingiber neesanum (J.Graham) Ramamoorthy
• Vernacular name : Nisam (Marathi); Kattukolinchi (Malayalam)
• Habit : Herb
• Habitat : Moist deciduous, semi-evergreen and Evergreen forests, also in the plains
• Comments / notes : In moist shady places, not common in Western Ghats.
• Flower, Fruit : July-September
• Collection Nos : HFP 1047, CJS 14599, CS 5829, CS 17937
• Distribution :
  • Karnataka : Hassan district, Shivamogga district, Udupi district, Uttara Kannada district, Dakshina Kannada district
  • Kerala : Kannur district, Wayanad district, Malappuram district, Palakkad district, Thrissur district, Idukki district, Pathanamthitta district, Kollam district, Thiruvananthapuram district
  • Maharashtra : Ahmednagar district, Bhandara district, Pune district, Raigad district, Satara district, Sindhudurg district
  • Tamil Nadu : Megamalai Wildlife Sanctuary, Theni district
• Native : India
• Endemism : Southwest India
• World Distribution : India
• Conservation Status : Not Evaluated (NE)
• Literature : Saldanha & Nicolson, 1976 - Flora of Hassan district, Karnataka; Balakrishna Gowda & A.N. Sringesh 2004 – Sringeri (checklist unpublished); Gopalakrishna Bhat, 2003 - Udupi; Gopalakrishna Bhat, 2014 - Flora of South Kanara; B. D. Sharma, S. Karthikeyan & N. P. Singh 1996 - Flora of Maharashtra state - Monocotyledons; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI; Ravichandran, V. 2016. Taxonomic and Phytogeographical investigation on endemic plants of Western Ghats with special reference to Megamalai Wildlife Sanctuary of Tamil Nadu (Ph.D. thesis work)
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Zingiber neesanum. Downloaded on 3 April 2025.

Botanical Description

Herbarium Specimen(s)

Field Image(s)