206 MEDICINAL PLANTS, 



SECTION XXV. 



Cardamom Tree. 

 Elitharia Cardamomum. Matok. 



This lias hitherto been regarded as a species of Ainomum, dis- 

 tinguished by the trivial name of repens; to which genus the gin- 

 ger * and grains of Paradise plants were also referred. From an 

 accurate description, however, of the plant producing this valuable 

 aromatic, communicated to the Linnasan Society by Mr. White, 

 surgeon of Madras, who has nevertheless persevered in the common 

 error of regarding it as an amomum, Dr. Ma ton has arranged it as 

 a new genus, to which he has given tiie name of Eletharia, from the 

 appellation of Elethari, originally bestowed upon this tribe by Van 

 Rhaede in his Hortus Malebaricus. 



The root is perennial : the stalks are simple, sheathy, erect, grow 

 to a considerable height, and beset with leaves, which are lance- 

 shaped, large, entire, acutely ribbed, and stand alternately upon the 

 sheaths of the stalk : the flower stalk proceeds immediately from 

 the root, and creeps along the ground ; it is commonly about a foot 

 and a half in length, articulated, in a zig zag form, and producing 

 numerous flowers, whicli are placed upon divided stipulated pe- 

 duncles, arising from the articulations : the calyx is small, and 

 obscurely divided into three teeth at the margin : the corolla is 

 monopetalous, composed of a narrow tube, divided at the mouth 

 into four segments ; of these the three outermost are long, narrow, 

 uniform, and of a straw colour, but the central one, which has been 

 considered as a nectary, is large, broad, concave, of an irregular oval 

 shape, and marked with violet coloured stripes : the filament is 

 membranous, strap-shaped, shorter than the segments of the corolla, 

 to the top of which the anthera is joined: the germen is roundish, 

 and placed below the insertion of the tube of the corolla ; the style 

 is filiform, of the length of the filament, and supplied with an ob- 

 tuse stigma : the capsule is triangular, divided into three cells and 

 valves, containing several small dark coloured seeds. 



This plant is a native of the East Indies, and according to Sonne. 



* See ch. iv. sect, xviii. 



