Biodiversity: A Contribution to the Study of Medicinal Properties Hedychium coronarium Roscoe (Zingiberaceae) – distribution in Atlantic Forest

DOI: 10.15343/0104-7809.200630.4.18

Abstract

In natural environment, as well as in cultures, chemical interactions appear among vegetable species, which influence seed
germination and species distribution. The present work aims to verify a possible allelophatic effect of Hedychium coronarium Roscoe
(Zingiberaceae), white ginger, using cucumber plantlets as indicator to understand its distribution in the ecosystem. Hedychium coronarium
is referred as having medicinal properties by the Juréia-Itatins’s populations and had many secondary metabolism compounds.
For this experiment, we used aqueous extracts of H. coronarium 1:5 p/v in Petri dishes and filter paper as substratum for germination,
with 10 replications containing each 10 cucumber seeds. The results showed that the aqueous extracts of H. coronarium inhibited the
development of the radicle at 3 and 7 days of germination, as well as the length of the hypocotil. Total fresh and dry masses of the
cucumber seedlings were not affected by white ginger extracts. Concerning these observations it can be concluded that there was
allelopathic effect of aqueous extracts of H. coronarium on the elongation of cucumber seedlings organs.