GHANA PARADISI. (iol 



HuMal-habaaJd} According to Beke,- it is conveyed to the market of 

 Baso (10° N. lat.), in Soutliern Abyssinia, from Tundie, a region lying 

 in about 9° N. lat. and 35° E. long.; thence it is carried to Massowah, 

 on the Red Sea, and shipped for India and Arabia. Von Heuglin^ 

 speaks of it as brought from the Galla country. It is not improbable 

 that it is the same fruit which Speke* saw growing in 1862 at Uganda, 

 in lat. 0°, and which he says is strung like a necklace by the Wagonda 

 people. Under the name of Heel Habashee, Korarima cardamoms were 

 contributed in 1 873 from Shoa to the Vienna exhibition ; we have also 

 been presented, in 1877, with an excellent specimen of them, recently 

 imported, by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig. 



Pereira proposed for the plant the name of Amomum Korarima, but 

 it has never been botanically described. It woidd appear from the above 

 statements that it must be indigenous to the whole mountainous region 

 of Eastern Africa, from the Victoria Nyanza lake (Uganda) to the 

 countries of Tumhe, Gura^-ue, and Shoa, south and south-eastward of 

 Abyssinia. 



GRANA PARADISI. 



Semina Cardamomi majoris, Piper Melegiieta; Grains of Paradise, 

 Guinea Grains, Melegiieta Pepper; R Grains de Paradis, Mam- 



guette; G. Paradieshdrner. 



Melegiieta 



reed-like plant, 3 to 5 feet high, producing on a scape rising scarcely an 

 inch above the ground, a delicate, wax-like, pale purple flower wJnc 1 1 

 is succeeded by a smooth, scarlet, ovoid fruit, 3 to 4 mches in length, 

 rising out of sheathing bracts.^ ^ , . , 



It varies considerably in the dimensions of all its parts according to 

 more or less favourable circumstances of soil and climate. In Uemeiara, 

 where the plant grows luxuriously in cultivation, the fruit is as laige 

 as a fine pear, measuring with its tubular part as much as 5 inches in 

 IpnrvfV. !.,/«> :,,„!,„„ :„ J; +„,. . .^v, f1-.A other hand, m some parts ot 



itiiigin by 2 inches m diameter; on ine otJiei lio-ix^ 

 West Africa it scarcely exceeds in size a large filbert, 

 fleshy pericarp, enclosing a colourless acid pulp of 



It has a thick 



taste 



along the coast region from SieiTa Leone to Uongo^ ^,ur\rnZ/ 

 termed, in allusion to its producing grains of paradise, the G-ram Coast 

 Penver Cnns^f nv M.l.nLin. ana^t. lies between Liberia and Oapc 



Palmas ; or, more exactly, between Capes Mesurado (Monfeerrado and 

 St. Andrews. The Gold Coast, whence the seeds arc now principally 

 exported, is in the Gulf of Guinea, further eastward. 

 . Of the distribution of the plant in the interior we ^ave no exact 

 information. Yet the name Melegueta refers to the ancient empire ot 



^ueaica Kahirma, lol. n. 41) who says J.f loai r^Q 



jreqvem in re cuUnarid et medicd, loco theMfe,}^^. b^o- 



Piper 'us. _ ^ ,_ 



^Letters on the commerce of Ahysmiia, Pf^^^^^> part 30 (18-8), 



^^<-., addressed to the Foreien Office, 1852; 

 *' 16. 20. 



5 Fig/ in Bentley and Trimen's MaUrrtl 



