What is "etlingera"

Etlingera is a genus of Indo-Pacific terrestrial and perennial herbs in the ginger family, Zingiberaceae consisting of more than 100 species found in tropical regions of the Old World.

Some of the larger species have leafy shoots reaching almost 10 metres high, and the bases of these shoots are so stout as to seem almost woody. Others of the species grow as clumps of leafy shoots; while others have such long creeping Rhizomes that each of their leafy shoots can be more than a metre apart.

Unique and distinctive to all Etlingera is a tube forming above the point where the base of the flowers petals joins onto the plant (i.e. above the insertion of the corolla lobes).