1. Amomum Cardamomum, a Java plant, supplies the round cardamoms.  It has pale brown flowers.  The fruit varies in size from that of a black currant to a cherry.

2.  A. angustifolium (Pereira), a plant having red blossoms; furnishes the large Madagascar cardamoms, and also supplies some of the seeds called “Grains of Paradise,” which are, however, larger than those imported under that name.

This species is found in Abyssinia, according to my friend Mr. Chas. Johnston, author of “Travels in Abyssinia,” who favored me with some specimens.  The seeds are pale olive brown, devoid of the fiery peppery taste of the grains of paradise.

3. A. maximum, the great winged amomum, produces the Java cardamoma of the London market, and is also grown extensively in Ceylon, the Malay islands, Nepaul, Sumatra, and other islands of the Eastern Archipelago.  There were exported from Ceylon in 1842, 5,364 lbs.; in 1843, 9,632 lbs.; 1844, 7,280 lbs.; and in 1845, 11,812 lbs.  The pods are large and long, and dark colored, approaching to black, the taste nauseous and disagreeable, not the least resembling that of the Malabar cardamoms.  It is propagated by cuttings of the rhizoma.  The plants yield in three years, and afterwards give an annual crop.  They are not used here, but sent to the continent.

4. Alpinia Cardamomum.—­This is the source of the clustered cardamoms, and furnishes the best known sort.  Its produce is in great request throughout India, fetching as much as L30 the candy of 600 Lbs.  About 192 candies are grown annually in Travancore, and the usual crop in Malabar is reckoned at 100 candies annually.  It flourishes on the mountainous parts of the Malabar coast, and among the western mountains of Wynaad.  The bulbous plants, which grow three or four feet high, are produced in the recesses of the mountains by felling trees, and afterwards burning them, for wherever the ashes fall in the openings or fissures of the rocks, the plant naturally springs up.  In the third year the plants come to perfection, bearing abundantly for a year or two, and then die.  In Soonda Balagat, and other places where cardamoms are planted, they are much inferior to those grown in the wild state.  It may be propagated by cuttings or divisions of the roots.  Not more than one-hundredth part of the cardamoms raised in Malabar are used in the country.  They are sent in large quantities to the ports on the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, up the Indus to Scinde, to Bengal and Bombay.  The price of Malabar cardamons at Madras, in June, 1853, was about L3 the maund of 25 lbs.  They fetch in the Bombay market L4 10s. the maund of 40 lbs.  Cardamoms form a universal ingredient in curries, pillaus, &c.  The seed capsules are gathered as they ripen, and when dried in the sun are fit for sale.  They should be chosen full, plump, and difficult to be broken; of a bright yellow color, and piercing smell; with an acrid bitterish, though not very unpleasant taste, and particular care should be taken that they are properly dried.