Cardamom - plant profile

Names

Cardamom, cardamon, true cardamom, green cardamom (English)
Elaichi, choti (Hindi)

Botanical name: Elettaria cardamomum
Family: Zingiberaceae, the ginger family

This species used to be known as Amomum cardamomum. The word cardamom is sometimes used for species of the closely related genus Amomum which are also members of the ginger family. The much larger brown and black cardamom fruits come from these other species. They have a coarser taste and aroma. Black cardamom, Amomum subulatum, is the best known of these related species.

The plant

A live cardamom plant growing at Kew Gardens.

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Image: A cardamom plant growing at Kew Gardens.

Cardamom is native to India and Sri Lanka where it occurs in the wild. It has been introduced all over all over tropical Asia where it is cultivated.
The plant grows in a thick clump of up to 20 leafy shoots. It can reach a height of between 2 to almost 6 m.

Leaves - dark green, long and sword-shaped. The underside is paler and may have a covering of tiny hairs.

Flowers - on a long flowering stalk which can grow to more than 1 m long. They are both male and female and are pale green. One of the petals is white and streaked with violet.

A photograph of a model of fresh cardamom fruit with the local name 'ilachi bari' housed in Kew's Economic Botany Collection.

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Fruits - pale green to yellow and elongated oval-shape. Each fruit has 3 chambers filled with small aromatic seeds, each about 3 mm long. The fruits and seeds dry to a straw-brown colour and are widely used as flavouring.