Botanical atlas

Dancing Girl Ginger

Globba marantina

Deep in the dry forests and sandy riverbanks of South and Southeast Asia grows a small ginger relative that tribal healers of Orissa's Gandhamardan Hills know as chhota rasna, the little rasna. They have long turned to its tuberous roots and leaves for coughs, colds, asthma, and the aching joints of rheumatoid arthritis, and word of its use as a folk remedy for snakebite traveled with it across the region. Farther east in the Moluccas, cooks have prized the plant's small spicy bulbils fresh or dried, using them much as cardamom, to season a dish and coax back a flagging appetite. This humble ginger has been leaned on for generations, though modern science has barely begun to look at it, so its old reputation remains more folklore than proven fact.

In tradition.

Deep in the dry forests and sandy riverbanks of South and Southeast Asia grows a small ginger relative that tribal healers of Orissa's Gandhamardan Hills know as chhota rasna, the little rasna. They have long turned to its tuberous roots and leaves for coughs, colds, asthma, and the aching joints of rheumatoid arthritis, and word of its use as a folk remedy for snakebite traveled with it across the region. Farther east in the Moluccas, cooks have prized the plant's small spicy bulbils fresh or dried, using them much as cardamom, to season a dish and coax back a flagging appetite. This humble ginger has been leaned on for generations, though modern science has barely begun to look at it, so its old reputation remains more folklore than proven fact.

Safety.

The root and leaf contain alkaloids and cardiac glycosides that can affect heart rhythm, especially with heart medications like digoxin, so they should not be used as a home remedy. The bulbils are used as a mild, cardamom-like spice in small culinary amounts. Avoid medicinal use during pregnancy, nursing, or with a heart condition.