Pian Jiang Huang

Curcuma wenyujin is a perennial rhizomatous herb of the Zingiberaceae family growing 60 to 110 cm tall, with thick, fleshy, branched rhizomes that are pale yellow to orange internally and lack the deep orange color of true turmeric (C. longa). Slender fusiform tuberous storage roots arise from the rhizome on long stolons. The pseudostem is formed by the overlapping sheaths of four to seven leaves; leaf blades are oblong-lanceolate, 30 to 60 cm long, pale green, and glabrous. Flowering shoots emerge from the rhizome before or with the leaves and bear a dense cylindrical spike of pink-tipped sterile coma bracts above pale green fertile bracts that subtend pale yellow tubular flowers with a yellow-throated labellum. It is cultivated chiefly in Zhejiang and adjacent provinces in eastern China.