326 SPICES 



CHAP. 



Its most remarkable feature is that the racemes instead 

 of spreading over the surface of the ground are borne 

 perpendicularly from the bulbs, and the fruit grows in 

 clusters of five and seven. This form is best suited for 

 growth at higher elevation than the Malabar, and stands 

 exposure and wind better. The value of the produce 

 is not less than that of Malabar. 



The best figure I have seen of the plant is the 

 original one in White's Malabar Cardamom ; there is 

 also a tolerably good coloured figure in Trim en's Medical 

 Botany, but the figure in Schumann's Zingiberaceae 

 published in the " Pflanzenreich " is hardly recognisable. 

 Schumann distinguishes the forms above described, viz. 

 the varieties majus and minus, as species, which I think 

 can hardly be maintained. There is also a photograph 

 of the plant in the Journal of the Horticultural Society, 

 vol. xxxviii. fig. 137. 



HISTORY 



There was a spice known to the Greeks and Eomans 

 as cardamomum and amomum, but it appears to be 

 certain that these spice plants, whatever they were, were 

 not the cardamoms of the present day, although the 

 name of this spice, as we know it, is evidently taken 

 from these words. 



The spice was known to Indian and Arabic writers 

 in very early times. The Indian writer Susruta (about 

 the eighth century) mentions it under the Sanskrit 

 name Eta, which with variants is the prevailing name 

 over India and Arabia, and it is mentioned in the list 

 f spices liable to duty at Alexandria in A.D. 176-180. 

 It was mentioned by Edrisi as a production of Ceylon 

 about A.D. 1154, and was probably a trade spice in 

 Europe long before that, though there is no definite 

 record of it. Marco Polo does not mention it in his 

 travels. Barbosa, the Portuguese traveller, mentions it 

 as a product of Malabar coast in 1514. Linschoten 

 mentions both the lesser and greater cardamom as used 

 in Southern India. Of the former he writes : " It most 



