part 24

(1877).

[2385] The small “_Cardamom_“ island in the Laccadive group, west of Malabar, is inhabited by Moplahs, known (as we are informed by Dr. King, Calcutta) in the south of India as dealers in cardamoms.

A well-marked variety, differing chiefly in the elongated form and large size of its fruits, is found wild in the forests of the central and southern provinces of Ceylon. It was formerly regarded as a distinct species under the name of _Elettaria major_, but careful observation of growing specimens has shown that it possesses no characters to warrant it being considered more than a variety of the typical plant, and it is therefore now called _E. Cardamomum_ var. β. It is only known to occur in Ceylon, where the ordinary cardamom of Malabar is not found except as a cultivated plant.[2386]

=History=—Cardamoms, _Elā_, are mentioned in the writings of Susruta, and hence may have been used in India from a remote period. It is not unlikely that in common with ginger and pepper they reached Europe in classical times, although it is not possible from the descriptions that have come down to determine exactly what was the Καρδάμωμον of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, or the Ἄμωμον of the last named writer. The _Amomum_, _Amomis_ and _Cardamomum_ of Pliny are also doubtful, the description he gives of the last being unintelligible as applied to anything now known by that name.

In the list of Indian spices liable to duty at Alexandria, _circa_ A.D. 176-180 (see Appendix, A), _Amomum_ as well as _Cardamomum_ is mentioned. St. Jerome names _Amomum_ together with musk, as perfumes in use among the voluptuous ecclesiastics of the 4th century.[2387]

Cardamoms are named by Edrisi[2388] about A.D. 1154 as a production of Ceylon, and also as an article of trade from China to Aden; and in the same century they are mentioned together with cinnamon and cloves (p. 282) as an import in Palestine by way of Acre, then a trading city of the Levant.[2389]

The first writer who definitely and correctly states the country of the cardamom appears to be the Portuguese navigator Barbosa[2390] (1514), who frequently names it as a production of the Malabar coast. Garcia de Orta[2391] mentions the shipment of the drug to Europe; he also ascertained that the larger sort was produced in Ceylon. The Malabar cardamon plant was figured by Rheede under its indigenous name of _Elettari_.[2392]

[2386] Thwaites, _Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniæ_, 1864. 318.

[2387] _S. Hieronymi Opera Omnia_, ed. Migne, ii. (1845) 297, in _Patrologiæ cursus completus_, vol. xxii.

[2388] In the work quoted in the Appendix, i. (1836) 73, 51.—It is questionable whether _Elettaria_ is intended at p. 51.

[2389] A _long_ and _curious article_ on _cardamoms_, by a pharmacist of Cairo, 13th century, named _Abul Mena_, is quoted by Leclerc, _Histoire de la Médecine arabe_, ii. (Paris, 1876) 215.

[2390] _Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar_, Hakluyt Society, 1866. 59. 64, 147. 154. etc.

[2391] In the work quoted at p. 547, note 8.

[2392] _Hortus Malabaricus_, xi. (1692) tab. 4-5.

The essential oil of cardamoms was distilled before 1544 by Valerius Cordus (see p. 526, note 1).

=Cultivation and Production=—Although the cardamom plant grows wild in the forests of Southern India, where it is commonly called _Ilāchi_, its fruits are largely obtained from cultivated plants. The methods of cultivation, which vary in the different districts, may be thus described:—

1. Previous to the commencement of the rains the cultivators ascend the mountain sides, and seek in the shady evergreen forests a spot where some cardamom plants are growing. Here they make small clearings, in which the admission of light occasions the plant to develope in abundance. The cardamom plants attain 2 to 3 feet in height during the following monsoon, after which the ground is again cleared of weeds, protected with a fence, and left to itself for a year. About two years after the first clearing the plants begin to flower, and five months later ripen some fruits, but a full crop is not got till at least a year after. The plants continue productive six or seven years. A garden, 484 square yards in area, four of which may be made in an acre of forest, will give on an average an annual crop of 12½ lbs. of garbled cardamoms.[2393] Ludlow, an Assistant Conservator of Forests, reckons that not more than 28 lbs. can be got from an acre of forest. From what he says, it further appears that the plants which come up on clearings of the Coorg forests are mainly _seedlings_, which make their appearance in the same _quasi_-spontaneous manner as certain plants in the clearings of a wood in Europe. He says they commence to bear in about 3½ years after their first appearance.[2394] The plan of cultivation above described is that pursued in the forests of Travancore, Coorg and Wynaad.

2. On the lower range of the Pulney Hills, near Dindigul, at an elevation of about 5,000 feet above the sea, the cardamom plant is cultivated in the shade. The natives burn down the underwood, and clear away the small trees of the dense moist forests called _sholas_, which are damp all the year round. The cardamoms are then sown, and when a few inches high are planted out, either singly or in twos, under the shade of the large trees. They take five years before they bear fruit: “in October,” remarks our informant,[2395] “I saw the plants in full flower and also in fruit,—the latter not however ripe.”

[2393] _Report on the Administration of Coorg for the year 1872-73_, Bangalore, 1873. 44.

[2394] Elliot, _Experiences of a Planter in the Jungles of Mysore_, Lond. ii. (1871) 201, 209.

[2395] Col. Beddome, Conservator of Forests, Madras. We have likewise to acknowledge information on this head from Dr. Brandia, Inspector-General of Forests in India, and Dr. King, Director of the Botanic Garden, Calcutta.

3. In North Canara and Western Mysore the cardamom is cultivated in the betel-nut plantations. The plants, which are raised from seed, are planted between the palms, from which and from plantains they derive a certain amount of shade. They are said to produce fruit in their third year.

Cardamoms begin to ripen in October, and the gathering continues during dry weather for two or three months. All the fruits on a scape do not become ripe at the same time, yet too generally the whole scape is gathered at once and dried,—to the manifest detriment of the drug. This is done partly to save the fruit from being eaten by snakes, frogs and squirrels, and partly to avoid the capsules splitting, which they do when quite mature. In some plantations however the cardamoms are gathered in a more reasonable fashion. As they are collected the fruits are carried to the houses, laid out for a few days on mats, then stripped from their scapes, and the drying completed by a gentle fire-heat. In Coorg the fruit is stripped from the scape before drying, and the drying is sometimes effected wholly by sun-heat.

In the native states of Cochin and Travancore cardamoms are a monopoly of the respective governments. The rajah of the latter state requires that all the produce shall be sold to his officials, who forward it to the main depôt at Alapalli or Aleppi, a port in Travancore, where his commercial agent resides. The rajah is tenacious of his rights, and inserts a clause in the leases he grants to European coffee-planters, of whom a great many have settled in his territory, requiring that cardamoms shall not be grown.

The cardamoms at Aleppi are sold by auction, and bought chiefly by Moplah merchants for transport to different parts of India, and also, through third parties, to England. All the lower qualities are consumed in India, and the finer alone shipped to Europe.

In the forests belonging to the British Government cardamoms are mostly reckoned among the miscellaneous items of produce; but in Coorg, the cardamom forests are now let at a rental of £3,000 per annum under a lease which will expire in 1878.[2396]

Dr. Cleghorn, late Conservator of Forests in the Madras Presidency, observes in a letter to one of us, that the rapid extension of coffee culture along the slopes of the Malabar mountains has tended to lessen the production of cardamoms, and has encroached considerably upon the area of their indigenous growth. A recent writer[2397] has shown from his own experience that the cultivation of the cardamom is a branch of industry worth the attention of Europeans, and has given many valuable details for insuring successful results.

[2396] Report quoted at p. 645. note 1.

[2397] Elliot, _op. cit._, chap. 12.

=Description=—The fruit of the Malabar cardamom as found in commerce is an ovoid or oblong, three-sided, three-valved capsule, containing numerous seeds arranged in three cells. It is rounded at the base, and often retains a small stalk; towards the apex it is more or less contracted, and terminates in a short beak. The longitudinally-striated, inodorous, tasteless pericarp is of a pale greyish-yellow, or buff, or brown when fully ripe, of a thin papery consistence, splitting lengthwise into three valves. From the middle of the inner side of each valve a thin partition projects towards the axis, thereby producing three cells, each of which encloses 5 to 7 dark brown, aromatic seeds, arranged in two rows and attached in the central angle.

The seeds, which are about two lines long, are irregularly angular, transversely rugose, and have a depressed hilum and a deeply channelled raphe. Each seed is enclosed in a thin colourless aril.

Cardamoms vary in size, shape, colour and flavour: those which are shortly ovoid or nearly globular, and ⁴/₁₀ to ⁶/₁₀ of an inch in length, are termed in trade language _shorts_; while those of a more elongated form, pointed at each end, and ⁷/₁₀ to ⁹/₁₀ of an inch long, are called _short-longs_. They are further distinguished by the names of localities, as Malabar (or Mangalore), Aleppi, and Madras. The _Malabar Cardamoms_, which are the most esteemed, are of full colour, and occur of both forms, namely _shorts_ and _short-longs_; they are brought to Europe _viâ_ Bombay. Those terms _Aleppi_ are generally _shorts_, plump, beaked and of a peculiar greenish tint; they are imported from Calicut, and sometimes from Aleppi. The _Madras_ are chiefly of elongated form (_short-longs_) and of a more pallid hue; they are shipped at Madras and Pondicherry.

Cardamoms are esteemed in proportion to their plumpness and heaviness, and the sound and mature condition of the seeds they contain. Good samples afford about three-fourths of their weight of seeds.[2398]

The fruits of the second form (var. β) of _Elettaria Cardamomum_, known in trade as _Ceylon Cardamoms_, are from 1 to 2 inches in length, and ³/₁₀ to ⁴/₁₀ of an inch in breadth, distinctly three-sided, often arched, and always of a dark greyish-brown. The seeds are larger and more numerous than those of the Malabar plant, and somewhat different in odour and taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The testa of the seed consists of three distinct layers, namely an exterior of thick-walled, spirally-striated cells, somewhat longitudinally extended, and exhibiting on transverse section, square, not very large, cavities; then a row of large cells with thin transverse walls; and finally, an internal layer of deep brown, radially-arranged cells, the walls of which have so thick a deposit that at the most only small cavities remain.

The granular, colourless, sac-shaped albumen encloses a horny endosperm, in which the embryo is inserted the projecting radicle being directed towards the hilum. The cells of the albumen have the form of elongated polyhedra, almost entirely filled with very small starch granules. Besides them, there occur in most of the cells, somewhat larger masses of albuminoid matter having a rhombohedric form, distinctly observable when thin slices of the seed are examined under almond oil in polarized light. These remarkable crystalloid bodies resemble those occurring in the seeds of cumin (p. 332).

=Chemical Composition=—The parenchyme of the albumen and embryo is loaded with fatty oil and essential oil, the former existing in the seed to the extent of about 10 per cent.

The percentage of essential oil is stated by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig, to be equal to 5 in the Madras Cardamoms, and to 3·5 in the Ceylon. We found the latter to be dextrogyrate; the same gentlemen presented us (1876) with a crystallized deposit from the latter oil, which appears to be _identical with common camphor_. Its alcoholic solution deviates the plane of polarization to the right, apparently to the same amount as that of common camphor (see also oil of spike, p. 479).

Dumas and Péligot (1834) state to have obtained from the essential oil of cardamoms (inodorous?) crystals of terpin, C₁₀H₁₆ + 3 OH₂. The ash of cardamoms, in common with that of several other plants of the same order, is remarkably rich in manganese.[2399]

=Commerce=—There are no statistics to show the production of cardamoms in the south of India or even the quantity exported. The shipments in the year 1872-73 from Bombay, to which port the drug is largely sent from the Madras Presidency, amounted to 1,650 cwt., of which 1,055 cwt. were exported to the United Kingdom.[2400]

Cardamoms, the produce of Ceylon and therefore of the _large_ variety, were exported from that island in 1872 to the extent of 9,273 lb.—the whole quantity being shipped to the United Kingdom.[2401]

[2398] Thus 202 lb. shelled at various times during 10 years, afforded 154½ lb. of seeds. (Information from the laboratory accounts of Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, Plough Court, Lombard Str.).

[2399] _Pharm. Journ._ iii. (1872) 208.

[2400] _Statement of the Trade, etc. of Bombay for 1872-73._ ii. 58. 90.

[2401] _Ceylon Blue Book for 1872_, Colombo, 1873. 543.

=Uses=—Cardamoms are an agreeable aromatic, often administered in conjunction with other medicines. As an ingredient in curry powder, they have also some use as a condiment. But the consumption in England is small in comparison with what it is in Russia, Sweden, Norway and parts of Germany, where they are constantly employed as a spice for the flavouring of cakes. In these countries Ceylon cardamoms are also used, but exclusively for the manufacture of liqueurs. In India, cardamoms, besides being used in medicine, are employed as a condiment and for chewing with betel.

Other sorts of Cardamom.

The fruits of several other plants of the order _Zingiberaceæ_ have at various times been employed in pharmacy under the common name of _Cardamom_. We shall here notice only those which have some importance in European or Indian commerce.[2402]

_Round or Cluster Cardamom_—_Amomum Cardamomum_ L., the mother plant of this drug, is a native of Cambodia, Siam, Sumatra and Java.

During the intercourse with Siam, which was frequent in the early part of the 17th century, this drug, which is there in common use, occasionally found its way into Europe. Clusius received a specimen of it in 1605 as the true _Amomum_ of the ancients, and figured it as a great rarity.[2403] As _Amomum verum_ it had a place in the pharmacopœias of this period. Parkinson (1640), who figures it as _Amomum genuinum_, says that “of late days it hath been sent to Venice from the East Indies.” Dale (1693) and Pomet (1694) both regarded it as a rare drug; the latter says it is brought from Holland, and that it is the only thing that ought to be used when _Amomum_ is ordered. In 1751 it was so scarce that in making the _Theriaca Andromachi_ some other drug had always to be substituted for it.[2404]

Thus it had completely disappeared, when about the year 1853 commercial relations were re-opened with Siam; and among the commodities poured into the market were _Round Cardamoms_. They were not appreciated, and the importations becoming unprofitable, soon ceased.[2405] They are nevertheless an article of considerable traffic in Eastern Asia.

Round Cardamoms are produced in small compact bunches.[2406] Each fruit is globular, ⁵/₁₀ to ⁷/₁₀ of an inch in diameter, marked with longitudinal furrows, and sometimes distinctly three-lobed. The pericarp is thin, fragile, somewhat hairy, of a buff colour, enclosing a three-lobed mass of seeds, which are mostly shrivelled as if the fruit had been gathered unripe. The seeds, which have a general resemblance to those of the Malabar cardamom, have a strong camphoraceous, aromatic taste.

[2402] For additional information on the various sorts of Cardamom, consult Guibourt, _Hist. des Drog._ ii. (1869) 215-227; Pereira, _Elements of Mat. Med._ ii.,