What you most likely have is Boesenbergia pandurata. It is a nice ginger and is often grown in Asia for culinary and medicinal purposes. I haven't tried growing it myself so I don't know what the cold tolerance for it is. I'll let people more experienced with growing it fill in the rest. Otherwise look on the web using the name I gave you for more info.

-Kyle

never actually heard of bamburanta before.

on a side note, kyle isn't B. pandurata an invalid name for B. rotunda?

Tim Chapman

oops, I should have googled it first, its a genus in the marantaceae. I've never come across one as far as I know, but its definitely not a ginger, though closely related.

Tim C.

Looks like you are right Tim on both counts. I had forgotten about the synonomy issue until you reminded me.

The Marantaceae has a ton of genera with strange names that no one has ever heard of. But in this case I think Bamburanta is probably not accepted any more. I see references to it being either a Ctenanthe or a Trachyphrynium but I don't have the time to really track down this name and what we should call it now (I'm leaving for a month in Europe tomorrow). A quick search of Kew Record indicates no one has used this name in the past 30 years in a scientific journal (at least in the title, abstract, or key words).

-Kyle

I had learned "Bamburanta" as a common name for Ctenanthe.