[8] The English botanist George Bentham reviewed the taxon in 1873 and gave it a much more detailed description, as well as the new combination Alpinia caerulea.

[9] The genus name Alpinia was coined by Carl Linnaeus in honour of the Italian botanist Prospero Alpini, and the species epithet caerulea is derived from the Latin word caeruleus, meaning blue, which is a reference to the fruit colour.

The natural range is from the Gosford district north along the coast to the tip of Cape York Peninsula and the islands of the Torres Strait (see map of sightings in the External links section below).

[4] The fruits are popular with a variety of birds including brush turkeys (Alectura lathami),[10] southern cassowaries (Casuarius casuarius), crimson rosellas (Platycercus elegans), king parrots (Alisterus scapularis), regent bowerbirds (Sericulus chrysocephalus), satin bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus), and Lewin's honeyeaters (Meliphaga lewinii).

For the Kuku Yalanji people of far northern Queensland, this plant had many uses – the fruit and rhizomes were eaten, the leaves were used to cover their shelters and to wrap meat when cooking in earth ovens.