A new species, Scaphochlamys longipedunculata (Zingiberaceae), is described and illustrated here. It is similar to Scaphochlamys grandis but differs in having 1- or 2-leaved shoots (versus shoots with 5 or more leaves) and peduncle length c.17 cm (versus peduncle length c.7 cm).

Little information is available on seed dormancy of members of the Zingiberales and especially the Zingiberaceae. Our aim was to investigate the dormancy breaking and germination requirements of Alpinia galanga in vitro with a minimum number of seeds, using the move-along experiment. The mass of imbibed seeds increased by 17.5% in 1 d, showing that seeds were water permeable. The best germination in the move-along experiment (86.7%) was obtained when seeds were exposed to the sequence of temperature regimes that began with winter (20/10°C), and seeds began to germinate after 6 weeks at this temperature regime. Seeds dry stored for 4 months and then incubated at the sequence of temperature regimes that began with summer (30/20°C) started germinating in the sixth week at this temperature regime and had germinated to 93.3% after 18 weeks. Seeds kept dry for 4 months and then treated with 50 mg l−1 gibberellic acid (GA3) began to germinate at 30/20°C after 2 weeks. Control seeds incubated continuously at 20/10, 25/15 or 30/20°C germinated to 80.6, 77.8 and 60.0%, respectively. When incubated at 15, 20, 25 or 30°C, the ideal temperature for embryo growth was 20°C. Since GA3 and dry storage can break non-deep physiological dormancy and embryos grew during warm stratification, seeds of A. galanga have non-deep simple morphophysiological dormancy (MPD). This is the first report of non-deep simple MPD in the Zingiberaceae.

Amomum Roxb. (Zingiberaceae) in Sumatra, Indonesia is revised. Twenty-four species are recognised, most names are typified, detailed descriptions of species are provided and a key to these species is given. Provisional IUCN conservation assessments are supplied for all species. Two new species are described: Amomum mentawaiense A.J.Droop and Amomum oligophyllum A.J.Droop.

An endemic species of Renealmia (Zingiberaceae) was treated under the illegitimate name R. sylvestris in Flora Neotropica (Maas, 1977). The new combination Renealmia striata (Stokes) Govaerts ex Maas is published for this species.

Two new species of Amomum, A. agastyamalayanum V.P.Thomas & M.Sabu and A. newmanii M.Sabu & V.P.Thomas (Zingiberaceae), from the Western Ghats of Kerala are described and illustrated. Their distribution, ecology, IUCN status, etymology and similarities to related taxa are also discussed.

The species of Amomum Roxb. (Zingiberaceae) in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are revised. Thirty-five species and two varieties are recognised, most names are typified, and detailed descriptions and a key are provided. Conservation assessments of all species are given. Eleven new species are described: Amomum calcaratum Lamxay & M.F.Newman, Amomum calcicolum Lamxay & M.F.Newman, Amomum celsum Lamxay & M.F.Newman, Amomum chevalieri Gagnep. ex Lamxay, Amomum chryseum Lamxay & M.F.Newman, Amomum glabrifolium Lamxay & M.F.Newman, Amomum plicatum Lamxay & M.F.Newman, Amomum prionocarpum Lamxay & M.F.Newman, Amomum rubidum Lamxay & N.S.Lý, Amomum stephanocoleum Lamxay & M.F.Newman and Amomum tenellum Lamxay & M.F.Newman.

Zingiber barbatum Wall. (family Zingiberaceae), is an underutilized medicinal plant and commonly known as ‘Meik tha-lin’ in Myanmar where it is used in the indigenous system of medicine. In the present study, 19 accessions of Z. barbatum from five provinces in Myanmar have been utilized to characterize and assess genetic diversity. Twenty-nine morphological characters were noted, including growth habit, leaf, pseudo-stem and rhizome characters. Fifteen primer sets of P450-based analogue (PBA) markers were used to reveal molecular characteristics. Of the 29 morphological characters, 22 showed a high degree of variation within wild ginger accessions, whereas 20 of these characters contributed significantly to morphological variation. Eleven amplified primer sets gave a total of 175 bands and exhibited 92.15% polymorphism across Z. barbatum accessions. Based on morphological characters and PBA markers, 19 accessions can be divided into two morphotype groups with comparatively higher genetic diversity. This information can be applied in future crop improvement, proper conservation and better use of this underutilized medicinal species.

Cautleya (Royle ex Benth.) Hook.f. (Zingiberaceae) is revised. Two species are recognised, one of them with two varieties. They are found in northern India, Nepal, Bhutan, southern China, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam. A key is given and all taxa are described. Preliminary conservation assessments are made.

Myxochlamys amphiloxa R.J.Searle (Zingiberaceae) from Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia is described and illustrated. An IUCN conservation assessment is made.

Scaphochlamys Baker (Zingiberaceae – Zingibereae) is found in southern Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo. In this treatment 31 species and six varieties are recognised. A new combination is made for Scaphochlamys anomala (Hallier f.) R.J.Searle; Scaphochlamys mat-kilau C.K.Lim, Scaphochlamys biloba (Ridl.) Holttum var. lanceolata (Ridl.) Holttum and Scaphochlamys longifolia Holttum are placed in synonymy. Included in this compendium is an analysis of the morphology of the genus, a brief historical review, a key to the species and a generic outline, as well as full generic and specific descriptions, maps, illustrations, and a full list of all names and types.

A new species of Riedelia (Zingiberaceae), Riedelia charontis M.F.Newman from Papua Province, Indonesia, is described and illustrated.

Heterogeneous agroforestry systems play an important role in maintaining animal pollinator diversity (Klein et al. 2003, Perfecto et al. 1996), most likely by extending floral resources in lean periods. An understanding of the mutualistic relationship between flower-visiting insects and crop species in such agroforestry systems (Kearns et al. 1998), particularly on the diversity of pollinator species, their spatio-temporal variations, foraging behaviour (Cunningham 2000, Greenleaf & Kremen 2006, Klein et al. 2003) and their pollination efficiency (Motten et al. 1981), is important as they are some of the crucial biological predictors of pollination success.

A phylogenetic analysis of the tribe Zingibereae (Zingiberaceae) was performed using nuclear ribosomal DNA (ITS1, 5.8S and ITS2) and chloroplast DNA (trnL (UAA) 5′ exon to trnF (GAA)). The tribe is monophyletic with two major clades, the Curcuma clade and the Hedychium clade. Paracautleya, sampled for the first time, comes out as predicted while Caulokaempferia comes out in a different position from that found in another recent study. The genera Boesenbergia and Curcuma are apparently not monophyletic.

The genus Caulokaempferia (Zingiberaceae) is recorded for the first time from Laos with the description and illustration of the new species C. burttii.

The new species Caulokaempferia larsenii (Zingiberaceae) from northern Thailand is described and illustrated.

This paper completes an account of the subfamily Alpinioideae (Zingiberaceae) of Lambir Hills National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia, started in the first paper of this series (Sakai & Nagamasu, 1998), which lists 12 Amomum species from the park. Twenty-two species in the genera Alpinia, Elettaria, Elettariopsis, Etlingera, Hornstedtia and Plagiostachys (Zingiberaceae) are reported from Lambir Hills, Sarawak, with systematic and ecological notes. Four species, Etlingera baramensis, E. inundata, E. newmanii and Plagiostachys glandulosa, are described as new to science, and Hornstedtia leonurus is reported from Borneo for the first time. In Etlingera inundata floral dimorphism is reported. The informal grouping of Etlingera proposed by Smith (1986b) is re-examined. Synonymies of Etlingera coccinea, Hornstedtia minor, H. affinis and H. phaeochoana and the generic position and synonymies of H. sarawacensis and H. conica are discussed. Lectotypes of Achasma brevilabrum (=Etlingera brevilabrum), Alpinia ligulata, Elettaria coccinea (=Etlingera coccinea), Elettaria speciosa (=Etlingera elatior) and Hornstedtia alliacea (=H. conica) are designated. Keys are also provided to all Bornean genera and species of Alpinioideae.

Reproductive phenology of 117 individuals from a total of 20 ginger species (Costaceae and Zingiberaceae) was monitored for up to 21 mo in a lowland mixed dipterocarp forest in the Lambir Hills National Park, Sarawak. Of these 20 species of iteroparous perennials, pollinated by either spiderhunters (Nectariniidae), medium-sized Amegilla bees (Anthophoridae), or small halictid bees (Halictidae), many reproduced more than once a year, or flowered continuously with short interruptions. Significant but weak synchronization in flowering events among conspecific individuals was detected for only two species out of the five examined (Etlingera aff. metriocheilos and Amomum somniculosum). The low synchronization within the population, the overlapping flowering among species sharing common pollinators, and the high flowering frequency for each species, contrast markedly with the reproductive phenology of hummingbird-pollinated and large bee-pollinated plants of related taxa in the Neotropics. Although the plants studied do not include all members of each pollination guild, at least one species within a guild was flowering at any time except in the spiderhunter-pollinated guild. Some bee-pollinated gingers may serve as keystone species for survival of the traplining bees living on floral nectar and pollen.

Internal transcribed spacer (ITS) nrDNA sequences of 42 accessions (representing 28 species) of Aframomum revealed an unusually low level of sequence variation, suggesting a recent radiation of the genus in Africa. The sample of species analysed includes all the main morphological variation and is based on wide geographical sampling. The Aframomum sequences varied from 187bp to 190bp (ITS 1) and 215bp to 216bp (ITS 2). Pair-wise sequence difference between accessions varied from 0% (e.g. A. luteoalbum and A. thonneri) to 2.74% (e.g. A. sp. nov. B to A. pseudostipulare). This contrasts with a comparable data set for the SE Asian genus Alpinia in the same tribe (Alpineae) in which maximum pair-wise difference is six times greater (range 0.5–15.6%). A parsimony analysis of the in-group and out-group taxa supports the monophyly of the genus Aframomum, but does not resolve the relationships between the in-group species. Four putative multi-species groups, however, have some jackknife support. The species sampled vary greatly in vegetative, floral and fruit characters. This morphological variation is not reflected in the ITS sequence data. This may be a result of rapid radiation under conditions of Pleistocene climatic change and effective dispersal of seeds by primates.

The phylogeny of Hedychium J. Koenig was estimated using sequence data of internal transcribed spacer regions 1 and 2 (ITS1, ITS2) and 5.8S nuclear ribosomal DNA. Sequences were determined for 29 taxa, one interspecific hybrid of Hedychium and one species in each of 16 other genera of Zingiberaceae representing tribes Hedychieae, Globbeae, Zingibereae and Alpinieae. Cladistic analysis of these data strongly supports the monophyly of Hedychium, but relationships to other genera are poorly supported. Within Hedychium, four major clades are moderately supported. These clades are also distinguishable on the basis of number of flowers per bract and distribution. Stahlianthus, Curcuma, and Hitchenia also form a strongly supported clade. Based on this limited sample, the currently defined tribes of Zingiberoideae are not monophyletic. The Asiatic genera form a monophyletic group within this broadly defined Hedychieae. The taxonomy and biogeography of Hedychium are reviewed.

A new species, Amomum vermanum from NE India, is described and illustrated.