114 " AMOMUM ANGUSTIFOLIUM," SONNERAT. 



1872. the fruit of a zingiberaceous plant called Amomum angustifolium. 



Names. Sonnerat, the author of this botanical name, was a French 

 traveller who visited Madagascar in the second half of the last 

 century. Among the plants of that island which he described 1 

 was the species in question, which he thought he identified with 

 the Great Cardamom of ancient writers, a drug we now know 

 to have a very different origin. The name Grand Cardamome 

 had, however, been given to it more than a century before by 

 Flacourt, 2 another explorer of Madagascar. Both Flacourt and 

 Longouz?. Sonnerat state that the plant is known as Longouze, and the 

 latter adds that it has been introduced into the Isle of France 

 where it thrives well. The fruit is described as of a scarlet 

 colour, filled with a white pulp of pleasant acidulous taste, in 

 which are imbedded numerous, spicy, brown seeds. The plant 

 is said to grow in great plenty in marshy places, but no 

 mention is made of the fruits being ever collected for the 

 purposes of commerce. 



In 1854, Mr. Emile Fleurot of Mauritius, contributed to the 

 Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society specimens and drawings 

 of the Longouze which is now apparently wild in that island. 

 They were labelled, in accordance with Bojer's Hortus Mauri- 

 tianus? Amomum nemorosum, under which name they were not 

 recognised as Sonnerat's plant. It appears, however, that this 

 A. nemorosum Bojer is but a synonym of A. angustifolium, Sonn., 

 with which in fact the specimens communicated by Mr. Fleurot 

 entirely agree. The plant is still claimed in Mauritius to be the 

 Grand Cardamome de Madagascar* 



Drugs from A collection of Mauritius drugs sent to the Paris Exhibition 

 of 18G7 included fruits of Amomum angustifolium, from which 

 I obtained a few seeds that germinated. During the past 

 summer (1871) one of the plants thus raised produced flowers, 



Rohwaarcnlcundc, II. (1854) 771 ; Berg, Pharm. Waarenkunde, 1863, 425 ; 

 Wiggere, Uandbuch d. Pharmacognosie, 1864, 176 ; Heukel, llandbuch d. 

 Pharmacognosie, 1862, 382. 



1 Voyage aux Indes Orientaleset d la Chine, II. (1782) 242. pi. 137. 



2 Hist, de la grande Isle de Madagascar, Paris 1658, 12C. 

 * Maurice, 1837, p. 327. 



4 Bouton, Medicinal Plants growing * * in Mauritius, 1857, p. 152. 



