Most food ingredients in Nepal have medicinal properties, and none more than turmeric. The colourful and aromatic spice got added recognition during the pandemic after word spread that it was a cure for Covid-19 infections.
Now, a botanist has discovered what appears to be a new species of wild turmeric in the mountains of Karnali Province in western Nepal. This hitherto unknown variety of turmeric belonging to the family Zingiberaceae has recently been recognised as the new species Curcuma nepalensis in the journal Annales Botanici Fennici.
Ginger and turmeric are two popular plants belonging to the Zingiberaceae family which has 57 genera. The Curcuma genus has 160 known species spread across Australia and South and South East Asia. C. amada, C. longa, and C. zedoaria are grown in Nepal, while C. angustifolia and C. aromatica are found in the wild here.
The two wild species are also found in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, and C. aromatica is also widespread in Cambodia, China, South-Central Tibet and Sri Lanka. The C. longa turmeric is native to India.
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Curcuma gives unique and visually striking inflorescence that emerges from the base of the plant. It has colourful bracts that often resemble petals of a flower in various shades of pink, purple, red, orange, or white.
The new Curcuma samples in the Karnali were gathered by Sajan Subedi and citizen scientist Saroj Kumar Kasaju from Surkhet. Its distinctive floral features were never see before, and they suspected it might be a new species for Nepal.
They then consulted an Indian botanist from the Malabar Botanical Garden and Institute for Plant Science in Kerala, Mamiyil Sabu who is an authority on plant group Zingiberales, and has spent the past three decades studying the taxonomy of the Indian Zingiberaceae, contributing to the discovery of seven Indian Curcuma species and two new combinations. He has altogether discovered 67 new species from the family Musaceae, Zingiberaceae, Balsaminaceae, Rubiaceae, among others.
