alpinia galanga

Alpinia galanga, a plant in the ginger family, bears a rhizome used as an herb in Southeast Asian cookery. It is one of four plants known as 'galangal', and is differentiated from the others with the common names lengkuas, greater galangal, and blue ginger.

The name 'galangal' is probably derived from Persian qulanjan or Arabic khalanjan, which in turn may be an adaptation of Chinese gao liang jiang. Its names in India is derived from the same root, including kulanja in Sanskrit, kulanjan in Hindi, ...