Roscoea wardii is a perennial herbaceous plant occurring from eastern Arunachal Pradesh in India to western Yunnan in China.

[1] Most members of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae), to which it belongs, are tropical, but like other species of Roscoea, R. wardii grows in much colder mountainous regions.

When growth begins again, "pseudostems" are produced: structures which resemble stems but are actually formed from the tightly wrapped bases (sheaths) of its leaves.

[5][3] The single functional stamen has a white anther, about 6–9 mm long, and the typical Roscoea "spurs" on the filament – blunt-tipped in the case of R. wardii.

The unusual mountainous distribution of Roscoea may have evolved relatively recently and be a response to the uplift taking place in the region in the last 50 million years or so due to the collision of the Indian and Asian tectonic plates.

The two clades correspond to a geographical separation, their main distributions being divided by the Brahmaputra River as it flows south at the end of the Himalayan mountain chain.

[6] Roscoea wardii is found in mountainous regions along the borders between Tibet, Yunnan (China), Arunachal Pradesh (India)[Note 1] and Burma.