''Curcuma amada'', or mango ginger is a plant of the

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...

family

Zingiberaceae Zingiberaceae () or the ginger family is a family of flowering plants made up of about 50 genera with a total of about 1600 known species of aromatic perennial herbs with creeping horizontal or tuberous rhizomes distributed throughout tropical Af ...

and is closely related to

turmeric Turmeric () is a flowering plant, ''Curcuma longa'' (), of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, the rhizomes of which are used in cooking. The plant is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asi ...

(''Curcuma longa''). The

rhizomes In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

are very similar to common ginger but lack its pungency, and instead have a raw

mango A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree ''Mangifera indica''. It is believed to have originated in the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South a ...

flavour. They are used in making pickles in south

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and chutneys in north India. It is served as chutney in community feasts in Nepal's southern plains. Mango ginger and elephant foot yam pickle is popular in Nepal's southern plains. The taxonomy of the species is a subject of some confusion as some authorities have considered the name C. mangga as identical while others describe it as a distinct species with C. mangga being found in southern India while C. amada is of east Indian origin. Mango-ginger is a popular spice and vegetable due to its rich flavor, which is described as sweet with subtle earthy floral and pepper overtones and similar to that of raw mango. It is a delicious addition to salads and stir fries. It is used in South Asian and Southeast Asian as well as Far East Asian cuisines. Flower of Curcuma amada

Medicinal research

''Curcuma mangga'' extracts have shown

cytotoxic Cytotoxicity is the quality of being toxic to cells. Examples of toxic agents are an immune cell or some types of venom, e.g. from the puff adder (''Bitis arietans'') or brown recluse spider (''Loxosceles reclusa''). Cell physiology Treating cells ...

activities on the human cancer cell lines MCF-7 (a hormone-dependent breast cell line), KB (a nasopharyngeal epidermoid cell line), A549 (a lung cell line), Ca Ski (a cervical cell line), and HT-29 (a colon cell line). The extracts showed no cytotoxicity against the non-cancerous human fibroblast cell line MRC-5. It works as an antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory and an antioxidant.

Ayurveda Ayurveda () is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population repo ...

and

Unani Unani or Yunani medicine (Urdu: ''tibb yūnānī'') is Perso-Arabic traditional medicine as practiced in Muslim culture in South Asia and modern day Central Asia. Unani medicine is pseudoscientific. The Indian Medical Association describes U ...

medicine have been using Curcuma Amada as a part of their herbal remedies for centuries as a starter, diuretic, laxative, expectorant, aphrodisiac and more. It is locally used and orally consumed to relieve cold and cough and bronchitis in some cases. The biological activities of mango ginger include antioxidant activity, antibacterial activity, antifungal activity, anti-inflammatory activity, platelet aggregation inhibitory activity, cytotoxicity, antiallergic activity, hypotriglyceridemic activity, brine-shrimp lethal activity, enterokinase inhibitory activity, CNS depressant and analgesic activity. The major chemical components include starch, phenolic acids, volatile oils, curcuminoids and terpenoids like difurocumenonol, amadannulen and amadaldehyde. Ethanolic extracts of mango ginger have been shown to have an antiallergic effect while the volatile oil didn't have any effect on allergic symptoms.

References

Edible plants

amada The Temple of Amada, the oldest Egyptian temple in Nubia, was first constructed by Pharaoh Thutmose III of the 18th dynasty and dedicated to Amun and Re-Horakhty. His son and successor, Amenhotep II continued the decoration program for this st ...

Taxa named by William Roxburgh {{Zingiberales-stub