See text Asarum is a genus of plants in the birthwort family Aristolochiaceae, commonly known as wild ginger.

They have characteristic kidney-shaped leaves, growing from creeping rhizomes, and bear small, axillary, brown or reddish flowers.

The curious jug-shaped flowers, which give the plant an alternate name, little jug, are borne singly in spring between the leaf bases.

Wild ginger can easily be grown in a shade garden, and makes an attractive groundcover.

However, a trend exists among some botanists to segregate the genus into separate genera, based on considerations of chromosome number and floral morphology: Study of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA, combined with morphological data, has yielded a better-resolved phylogenetic hypothesis, supporting a recognition of two subgenera, Asarum and Heterotropa each containing two sections, rather than the segregated genera above.