116 
MATONIA CARDAMOMUM, 
hollow, round, smooth, and about the thickness of the thumb, 
gradually tapering as the continued sheaths send off the leaves ; 
at the lower part, to the distance of three or four inches from the 
root, they are clubbed and jointed ; the leaves are alternate, 
sheathing, about four spans, or from ten to thirty inches long, and 
from three to four broad, smooth, entire, of a bright green, and 
striated with parallel veins, the under side paler ; the midrib, on the 
upper side, pale green, on the under side, much deeper ; the flower 
stalks proceed from the lower part of the stems, close against the 
roots, and creeps along the ground, articulated, and about a foot 
and a half or two feet in length ; the flowers are produced in racemes 
or panicles, much branched, and proceed from the articulations ; 
the flowers are alternately accompanied with small, ovate, acute 
bracteas; the calyx is monophyllous, inferior, double, tubular, and 
divided at the brim into three segments ; the corolla is monopetalous, 
funnel-shaped, the tube longer than the calyx, the brim four-cleft, 
the three outer segments long, narrow, and of a pale straw colour, 
the centre one large, broad, concave, and irregularly oval, and 
marked with purple stripes; the filament is large, broad, slightly 
grooved, and supports a large double emarginate crestless anther, 
divided into two lobes by a deep fissure ; the germen is inferior, 
globular, and supports a slender style, (the upper part of which lies 
in the fissure formed by the two lobes of the anthers) ; stigma 
funnel-shaped and ciliated ; capsule a trilocular berry ; when fresh, 
oblong, fleshy, and smooth ; when dried, coriaceous, and of a 
brownish colour; seeds small, numerous, roundish, somewhat angu- 
lar, and of a dark brown colour. 
The plant which aflbrds the officinal cardamom seeds of our 
pharmacopoeias, was long unknown or its botanical character but 
imperfectly described. By former botanists it was generally consi- 
dered as a species of Amomum,* but the identical species was never 
precisely ascertained, until Mr. White, surgeon, on the Bombay 
establishment, communicated to the Directors of the East India 
Company, the botanical description and natural history of the 
plants which yield the true cardamom seeds of commerce,! which 
led to the formation of a new genus, undet the title of Elettaria, so 
* The Edinburgh College supposed the seeds to be the product of the Amomnui 
Repens (first discovered by Sonnerat) ; but the Dublin College, and most of the con- 
tinental pharmaceutical writers, have ascribed them to the Amomum Cardamomum of 
Linnaeus. 
+ Vide Linnaean Transactions, vol. X. 
