Perhaps the most common use of the plant  is as a shampoo and conditioner. The clear fragrant juice present in the mature flower heads that resemble red pine cones is used for softening and bringing shininess to the hair. It can be left in the hair or rinsed out. 

The juice that is squeezed out is quite slimy and is therefore suitable as a massage lubricant.

The fragrant leaves and leaf stalks can be used to wrap food when cooking to enhance the flavor of pork and fish as they cooked.

The aromatic underground rhizomes can be sliced, dried, and pounded to a powder. The traditional uses of this plant are quite varied, from general pain relief of sprains to toothaches (applying the ground pulp to affected areas), to ingestion for treatment of stomach aches, worms, and diarrhea.

Its also becoming a more and more important plant in modern medicine. New studies also link an extract from this plant called  'zerumbone' to having the ability to destroy cancerous cells in the human liver.