Wild Ginger

Well, today I found it. But before we delve into exploring wild ginger, I checked the Wikipedia. It turns out there are several varieties of plants, referred to as wild ginger. We shall talk about Asarum caudatum, the one that belongs to Aristolochiaceae family.  The other one is Alpinia, it belong to proper Ginger family (Zingiberaceae).

Asarum can be easily confused with false lily-of-the-valley, their leaves have similar heart shape. There is a way to tell though: lily's leaves are smooth and shiny and the veins run parallel to each other in curves. Here is the picture:

False lily-of-the-valley

Wild ginger's leaves are more rounded, matte (not so shiny) and the veins pattern is more spread out. They also have fuzz around them. Here is the picture of wild ginger leaves:

Wild ginger (Asarum)

I even found a flower on one of them. It's not at its best but it does give an idea what it looks like:

Wild ginger flower

The plant is supposed to smell like ginger if you rub the leaves but I could not detect any ginger aroma. In fact it did not have any aroma at all.