This perennial bears violet-striped, white flowers and aromatic, green fruits on erect or trailing racemes. The small
variety of cardamom (α-minor) cultivated in Malabar is the most valuable variety. This variety has been almost entirely replaced, in
the last 50 years, by the larger variety, β-major. The plant grows more than 2 m tall and exhibits a long rhizome from which the fruitbearing
stalks emerge. The fruits (husks) containing the seed are harvested prior to ripening, which is completed by exposing them
to sunlight. The seeds are subsequently sorted into several commercial qualities based on color, size and origin (Malabar, Cylone,
Mysore). Cardamom has a warm, spicy, aromatic odor that is somewhat pungent and faintly bitter at high concentrations.
Cardamom is an aromatic used to treat dyspepsia, colic, flatulence, irritable bowel syndrome, gallstones, viruses, the common cold, cough, bronchial congestion, and anorexia. It is most commonly used therapeutically by Ayurvedic practitioners.
Essential oil composition
The main constituents of the oil are limonene, cineol, d-α-terpineol and terpinyl acetate. Constituents
of cardamom fruit Elettaria cardamomum, Mysore variety from Sri Lanka, include α-pinene, β-pinene, myrcene, phellandrene,limonene, 1–8-cineol, 8-terpinene, p-cymene, linolool (6.95%); linalyl acetate, β-terpineol, α-terpinyl acetate (51.15%), nerol, geraniol,
nerolidole and other susbtances.* TNO (2000) reported? identification of 156 compounds in cardamom. Of these, 39 were hydrocarbon,
36 alcohols, 19 carbony aldehydes, 9 carbony ketones, 14 acids, 22 esters and the remaining were ethers, phenols, furans and
oxides or epoxides of pyrans or coumarins.
