NOTES OX CHINESE MATERIA MEDICA. 249 



coherent into a three-lobed mass; they are generally light 186O-62. 



greyish-brown, somewhat oblong and angular, with a deep 



furrow on one side ; they have a slight aromatic odour and 



taste, the latter suggestive of thyme, though much weaker. 



This cardamom, as generally met with in the Chinese shops, has 



been deprived of its husks. It is a native of the South of China 



and of Cochin-China, whence it is exported. It appears to be 



much employed in Chinese medicine as a stomachic, but it must 



be very inferior in power to some other species. 



Small Round China Cardamom. Cardamome ronde de la Small round 

 Chine. Guibourt, Hist, des Drog., eU 4, tome ii. (1849), p. 215, 

 Fig. 113, 114 (excluding other synonyms) ; Pharm. Journ., xiv., 

 354, Fig. 3. 



A smaller fruit than the preceding, which it much resembles. 

 The following description of it is taken from M. Guibourt's 

 Histoire des Drogues : 



" Capsules pedicelled, nearly spherical, from seven to eight 

 lines in diameter, slightly striated longitudinally and much 

 wrinkled in all directions by drying; it is probable, however, 

 that the fruit was smooth when recent. The capsule is thin, 

 light, easily torn, yellowish externally, white within. The seeds 

 form a globular coherent mass. They are rather large and few 

 in number, somewhat wedge-shaped, of an ashy-grey, a little 

 granular on the surface and present on the outer face a bifurcate 

 furrow, shaped like a Y. They possess a strongly aromatic odour 

 and taste." 



To this description I may add that, compared with the Large 

 Round China Cardamom, the capsules in question are more 

 wrinkled in a network manner, more fragile and thin, and (from 

 immaturity ?) much less adherent to the mass of seeds ; they 

 even are more globose, not triangular at the base, but flat, or 

 even depressed like an apple. Their colour, in all the specimens I 

 have seen, is a brownish-yellow. I cannot confirm M. Guibourt's 

 remark as to the highly aromatic properties of the seeds. 



This cardamom, which appears to bear the same Chinese name 

 as the foregoing, is attributed by M. Guibourt to the Amomum 

 ylobositm of Loureiro. 



