IS 
ON THE CEYLON CARDAMOM. 
ART. V. — ON THE CEYLON CARDAMOM. 
By Jonathan Pereira, M.D., F.R.S. and L.S. 
The Scitamineousplant which bears the fruit known incom- 
merce as the Wild or Ceylon Cardamom, and which is the 
produce of the island whose name it bears, has not hitherto, 
at least to my knowledge, been described by any botanist. 
The account given by Bontius* of a plant which he calls 
the Cardamomum mujus does not constitute any exception 
to this statement. For, in the first place, it is by no means 
clear that the fruit which he has figured is identical with our 
Ceylon Cardamom ; and even admitting that it is, he must 
have fallen into some remarkable error with respect to its 
mother-plant, which, he says, is taller than a man, and has 
a flower like a hyacinth ; and he gives a figure of it which 
represents a plant with a large, terminal, simple raceme. 
Now, neither his description nor his figure applies to the 
Ceylon Cardamom plant. 
The hot acrid seeds known at the present day in this 
country, by the name of Grains of Paradise, are exclu- 
sively brought from the Western Coast of Africa, and are, in 
consequence, sometimes called Guinea Grains. The plant 
which yields them is said by Wildenovvt to be a, native of 
Ceylon, a statement which I shall presently prove to be er- 
roneous. 
The most recent writer on the Botany of Ceylon is Mr. 
Mbon,j formerly Superintendent of the Botanic Garden of 
that island. This botanist mentions seven species of •fllpinia, 
which are indigenous to, or cultivated in Ceylon. They 
* Hist. Nat., p. 127. 
f Species Plantarum, i., p. 9. Berolini, 1797. 
$A Catalogue of the Indigenous and Exotic Plants growing in Ceylon. 
Colombo, 1824. 
