The Midnight ginger, or Zingiber malayensis, has glossy black foliage. Its yellow flowers bloom gradually, turning bright pink as spring fades into summer.
The flowering ginger family, Zingiberaceae, is diverse, including some 47 genera and more than 1,000 species. Some of the more common genus names you are likely to see in the nursery trade include Alpinia, Costus, Hedychium, and Zingiber (which includes the edible culinary ginger). Flowering ginger plants aren’t known by any other common names, although some individual species bear such uninteresting names as “red ginger” or “yellow ginger.”