

AMOMUM FRUITS. 291 



AMOMUM FRUITS. The Exhibition contains the fruits of 1862 

 several species which are not without interest to the pharma- Amoma. 

 cologist. Thus we find fruits of Amomum Cardamomum, L., and 

 A. xanlhioides, Wall., sent from Siam and Cochin- China ; and 

 fruits of A. maximum, Eoxb., from India. From the French 

 settlements on the Gaboon Eiver, come specimens of the fruits 

 of Amomum citratum, Pereira, a species of which we at present 

 know very little, but which is remarkable for the agreeable lemon- 

 like odour of its large angular seeds. The fruit of A. Danielli, 

 Hook, f., a very variable plant, common all along the coast 

 of Tropical Western Africa, is in one of the English collections, 

 where we also find fruits of A. latifolium, Afz., which are 

 striking from their large size. A. latifolium, a native of Sierra 

 Leone, was described by Afzelius in 1813 in his Remedia 

 Guineeiisia, published at Upsal, but it is a plant still almost un- 

 known to botanists. There are specimens of two other fruits of 

 Amomum from the Portuguese settlements on the west coast, 

 which probably belong to undescribed species. Fruits of 

 Amomum Mehgueta, Eosc., the seeds of which constitute the 

 Grains of Paradise of the shops, are sent from the West Indies, 

 where the plant, which has been introduced from Western Africa, 

 thrives as well as in its native jungles. Lastly, I may name as 

 the most interesting of all, Amomum Korarima, Pereira, the A. 

 fruits of which have for ages been known as the Greater Carda- 

 mom (Cardamomum majus), though the name is now misapplied 

 to Grains of Paradise. The true Cardamomum majus, which is 

 figured and described in several of the older works on Materia 

 Medica, is still an object of traffic in the East, and, strung upon 

 strings, may still be seen adorning the stalls in the drug bazaar 

 of Damascus. In Abyssinia it answers the purpose of a small 

 coin, and as such it figures in the collection exhibited by the 

 International Decimal Association. The seeds of A. Korarima 

 are an agreeable aromatic, in flavour much resembling the seeds 

 of the common Elettaria Cardamom, and entirely devoid of the 

 burning taste of Grains of Paradise. The plant for which 

 the late Dr. Pereira proposed the name Amomum Korarima is 

 entirely unknown ; it is supposed to be a native of eastern 



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