X 
CARDAMOMS 
357 
OTHER CARDAMOMS 
Nepal Cardamom [Amomum suhulatum). — This 
plant is pretty extensively cultivated by the in- 
habitants of Eastern Nepal. It is essentially a swamp 
plant, and comes in usefully as a crop for irregular 
patches of ground by the sides of streams which are 
unsuitable for rice, than which it is more profitable 
(Dr. King, Journal Linnean Society, xvii.). 
The plants are cultivated in much the same way as 
the true cardamoms. According to N. G. Mukerji 
[Handbook of IndAan Agriculture), it is grown in the 
lower valleys of Bhotan and Sikkim, where the beds 
are made alongside mountain streams, whence water is 
taken along narrow channels, alongside of which the 
cardamoms are grown on ridges. This arrangement 
secures constant moisture and freedom from water- 
logging. The plant is known as Bara-dachi, or the 
greater cardamom, or Kala-dachi, the black cardamom. 
The plant attains a height of 3 to 6 ft., and the 
flowers are produced in a dense short spike close to the 
ground. In fruit this spike is ovoid, 3 to 4 in. long, 
densely crowded with bracts. The fruit is about 1 in. 
in length, ovoid, three-cornered, and marked with thin 
jagged ridges, and coarsely striped. The fruit splits 
readily into three valves, and encloses a mass of about 
60 to 80 seeds embedded in a pulp. The seeds are 
highly aromatic, and used by natives chiefly. 
There is practically, it appears, no European com- 
merce in these cardamoms, but they are in some demand 
in India. 
Round Cardamoms (Amomum Cardamomum, L.) 
is a native of Cambodia and Siam. It has stems about 
4 ft. tall, with a short cluster of pink and white flowers 
at the base. The fruit is produced in small compact 
bunches, and is globular (whence the name round 
cardamoms) ; to in. through, longitudinally 
furrowed ; the capsule is thin, fragile, buff - coloured 
when dry, and somewhat hairy. The seeds resemble 
