March 22, 2023 - Our description of Eighteen New Species of Neotropical Costaceae has been published at last! You can find the published article at PhytoKeys 222: 75-127. I wrote a guest blog for Pennsoft Publishers about my participation in this project that can be seen at this link GUEST BLOG POST.

HOW TO USE THIS SITE - This website is organized on several different levels, so depending on what you are looking for, there are several ways to view the information here. The navigation links are in the column to the left.

1. SEARCH THIS SITE - If there is a particular plant name in Costaceae, and you just want to find out more about it, the quickest way is to use the name search page for this site.
2. SPECIES LISTS - This gets you to the main pages. There are separate species lists for each genus in Costaceae. On the lists there are links to the Data Sheets for a taxon, links to my field observations on inaturalist.org, and links to my Google photo albums for each species. On the Data Sheets there is general information about the species and my observations of them. There are also links to information about my collections/accessions of the plants growing in my garden and many more photos showing different phenotypes with all the diagnostic details which are sometimes needed for correct identification,
3. PLANT IDENTIFICATION - If you have a plant and you want to identify it, you can browse the identification photo pages that show a single thumbnail photo of the inflorescence for each species. These are arranged by genus and the thumbnails are clickable to open a more detailed description with additional photos. This is a good starting place for identifying an unknown plant by species name.
4. GENERAL INFORMATION - Next you will find links to my presentations, publications, and other general information about Costaceae.
5. Dave looks for plants - This is where I reminisce about my many adventures and the wonderful people of Latin America who I have met in my travels looking for Costus. (I am just starting to rebuild this after my WordPress site stopped functioning)

The Gingers 'R' Us website
Dedicated to the plant family Costaceae!

Botanists have made a lot of progress in recent years with a lot more scientific research completed, new genera and species described, and some old species reclassified or renamed. Many ginger species' genetic makeup has been analyzed resulting in new findings in phytogeography and the evolutionary relationships between species. I have found that all this is simply too much for me to keep up with, and rather than have incorrect or incomplete information published on my website, I have decided to limit these website pages to the plants that I specialize in.

Accordingly, this site will now focus almost entirely on the plant family Costaceae - which includes the genera Costus, Chamaecostus, Cheilocostus (now Hellenia and Parahellenia), Monocostus, Dimerocostus, Paracostus, and Tapeinochilos. Most of the information will be on the scientific study of these plants, but I will also try to include information of interest to the general gardening public. I will include information about my field trips to the tropics exploring the jungles for new species, information about growing these plants in home gardens and greenhouses, and any other related information that may be of interest to Costus aficionados.

The links to the left will take you to pages with the formal botanical descriptions of these plants, detailed photos of plants both cultivated and in their natural habitats, and many other related topics. I am also happy to receive email inquiries about Costaceae, or you can visit my page on Facebook to see my latest plant discoveries.