are imported still cohering in ovoid, three-lobed masses, as packed in the pericarp. Sometimes they are distinguished as Bastard or Wild, but are more generally termed simply Cardamom Seeds. They are a considerable article of trade in Siam, but in commercial returns are not distinguished from the preceding. The fruits of this species grow in round clusters and are remarkable for having the pericarp thickly beset with weak fleshy spines,' which gives them some resemblance to the fruits of a Xanthium, and has suggested the specific name. 3 4 Bengal Cardamom-This drug, which with the next two has been hitherto confounded under one name,2 is afforded by Amomum aromaticum Roxb., a native of the valleys on the eastern frontier of Bengal. According to Roxburgh, the plant blossoms during the hot season before the periodical rains, and matures its fruit in September; the latter is then gathered and sold to the drug dealers, under the name of Morung Elachi. Bengal cardamoms average about an inch in length, and are of ovoid or slightly obconic form, and obscurely 3-sided; the lower end is rounded and usually devoid of stalk. The upper part of the fruit is provided with 9 narrow jagged wings or ridges, which become apparent after maceration; and the summit terminates in a truncate bristly nipple,―never protracted into a long tube. The pericarp is coarsely striated, and of a deep brown. It easily splits into 3 valves, inclosing a 3-lobed mass of seeds, 60 to 80 in number, agglutinated by a viscid saccharine pulp, due to the aril with which each seed is surrounded. The seeds are of roundish form, rendered angular by mutual pressure, and about of an inch long; they have a highly aromatic, camphoraceous taste. Nepal Cardamom-The description of the Bengal cardamom applies in many points to this drug, to which it has a singularly close resemblance. The fruit is of the same size and form, and is also crowned in its upper part with thin jagged ridges, and marked in a similar manner with longitudinal striæ; and lastly, the seeds have the same shape and flavour. But it differs, firstly, in bearing on its summit a tubular calyx, which is as long or longer than the fruit itself; and secondly, in the fruit being often attached to a short stalk. The fruits are borne on an ovoid scape, 3 to 4 inches long, densely crowded with overlapping bracts, which are remarkably broad and truncate with a sharp central claw,very distinct from the much narrower ovate bracts of A. aromaticum, as shown in Roxburgh's unpublished drawing of that plant. The plant, which is unquestionably a species of Amomum, has not yet been identified with any published description. We have to thank Colonel Richard C. Lawrence, British Resident at Katmandu, for sending us a fruit-scape in alcohol, some dried leaves, and also the drug itself, -the last agreeing perfectly with specimens obtained through other channels. 1 See figure in Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 418. As by Pereira, Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. 1850) 1135. 3 Flora Indica, Serampore, i. (1832) 45. Gardens, Calcutta, has been good enough to send us a large sample of Bengal cardamoms, which he says are best known in the bazaars as Buro Elachi. They quite agree with specimens previously in our possession. The Nepal cardamom, the first account of which is due to Hamilton,1 is cultivated on the frontiers of Nepal near Darjiling. The plant is stated by Col. Lawrence to attain 3 to 6 feet in height, and to be grown on well-watered slopes of the hills, under the shelter of trees. The fruit is exported to other parts of India. Java Cardamom-A well-marked fruit, produced by Amomum maximum Roxb., a plant of Java. The fruits are arranged to the number of 30 to 40 on a short thick scape, and form a globose group, 4 inches in diameter. They are stalked, and of a conical or ovoid form, in the fresh state as much as 14 inches long, by 1 inch broad. Each fruit is provided with 9 to 10 prominent wings, of an inch high, running from base to apex, and coarsely toothed except in their lowest part. The summit is crowned by a short, withered, calycinal tube. Mr. Binnendyk, of the Botanical Garden of Buitenzorg, in Java, who has kindly supplied us with fine specimens of A. maximum, as well as with an admirable coloured drawing, states that the plant is cultivated, and that its fruits are sold for the sake of their agreeable edible pulp. We do not know whether the dried fruits or the seeds are ever exported. Pereira confounded them with Bengal and Nepal cardamoms. Korarima Cardamom-The Arab physicians were acquainted with a sort of cardamom called Heil, which was later known in Europe and is mentioned in the most ancient printed pharmacopoeias, as Cardamomum majus. Like some other Eastern drugs, it gradually disappeared from European commerce, and its name came to be transferred to Grains of Paradise, which to the present day are known in the shops as Semina Cardamomi majoris. The true Cardamomum majus is a conical fruit, in size and shape not unlike a small fig reversed, containing roundish angular seeds, of an agreeable aromatic flavour, much resembling that of the Malabar cardamom, and quite devoid of the burning taste of grains of paradise. Each fruit is perforated, having been strung on a cord to dry; such strings of cardamoms are sometimes used by the Arabs as rosaries. The fruit in question is called in the Galla language Korarima, but it is also known as Gurági spice, and by its Arabic names of Heil and Habhal-habashi. According to Beke, it is conveyed to the market of Báso in Southern Abyssinia from Tumhé, a region lying in about 9° N. lat. and 35° E. long; thence it is carried to Massowah on the Red Sea and shipped for India and Arabia. Von Heuglin5 speaks of it as brought from the Galla country. It is not improbable that it is the same fruit which Speke saw growing in 1862, at Uganda in lat. 0°, and which he says is strung like a necklace by the Wagonda people. Pereira proposed for the plant the name of Amomum Korarima, but it has never been botanically described. 6 1 Account of the Kingdom of Nepal, Edinb. 1819. 74-75. * As the Tesaurus Aromatariorum, printed at Milan in 1496, in which it is called Heil or Gardamomum majus. 3 So named by Forskal in 1775 (Materia Medica Kahirina, 151. n. 41) who says "frequens in re culinaria et medicâ, loco piperis." 4 Pereira, Pharm. Journ. vi. (1847) 466; Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. (1850) 1136; Vaughan, Pharm. Journ. xii. (1853) 587. 5 Reise nach Abessinien, Jena, 1868. 223. Journal of the discovery of the source of the Nile, 1863. 648 (appendix). GRANA PARADISI. Semina Cardamomi majoris, Piper Melegueta; Grains of Paradise, Guinea Grains, Melegueta Pepper1; F. Graines de Paradis, Maniguette; G. Paradieskörner. Botanical Origin-Amomum Melegueta Roscoe-an herbaceous, reed-like plant, 3 to 5 feet high, producing on a scape rising scarcely an inch above the ground, a delicate wax-like, pale purple flower, which is succeeded by a smooth, scarlet, ovoid fruit, 3 to 4 inches in length, rising out of sheathing bracts. It varies considerably in the dimensions of all its parts, according to more or less favourable circumstances of soil and climate. In Demerara, where the plant grows luxuriantly in cultivation, the fruit is as large as a fine pear, measuring with its tubular part as much as 5 inches in length by 2 inches in diameter; on the other hand in some parts of West Africa, it scarcely exceeds in size a large filbert. It has a thick fleshy pericarp, enclosing a colourless acid pulp of pleasant taste, in which are imbedded the numerous seeds. A. Melegueta is widely distributed in tropical West Africa, occurring along the coast region from Sierra Leone to Congo. Of its distribution in the interior, we have no exact information. The littoral region, termed in allusion to its producing grains of paradise, the Grain Coast, lies between Liberia and Cape Palmas; the Gold Coast whence the seeds are now principally exported, is in the Gulf of Guinea, further eastward. History-There is no evidence that the ancients were acquainted with the seeds called Grains of Paradise; nor can we find any reference to them earlier than an incidental mention under their African name, in the account 2 of a curious festival held at Treviso in A.D. 1214: it was a sort of tournament, during which a sham fortress held by twelve noble ladies and their attendants, was besieged and stormed by assailants armed with flowers, fruits, sweetmeats, perfumes and spices, amongst which last figure-Melegetæ ! After this period there are many notices, showing the seeds to have been in general use. Nicolas Myrepsus, physician at the court of the Emperor John III. at Nicæa, in the 13th century, prescribed Meveyétat; and his contemporary Simon of Genoa at Rome, names the same drug as Melegete or Melegette. Grana Paradisi are enumerated among spices sold at Lyons 5 in 1245; and, as Greyn Paradijs, in a tariff of duties levied at Dordrecht in Holland in 1358. And again, among the spices used by John, king of France when in England, A.D. 1359–60, Grainne de Paradis is repeatedly mentioned.7 In the earliest times, the drug was conveyed by the long land journey from Tropical Africa to the coast of Tripoli,1 as it is in small quantities up to the present day; and being the produce of an unknown region and held in great esteem, it acquired the name of Grains of Paradise. Towards the middle of the 14th century, there began to be direct commercial intercourse with Tropical Western Africa. Margry 2 relates that ships were sent thither from Dieppe in 1364, and took cargoes of ivory and malaguette, from near the mouth of the river Cestos. A century later, the coast was visited by the Portuguese, who termed it Terra de malaguet. The celebrated Columbus also, who traded to the coast of Guinea, called it Costa di Maniguetta. Soon after this period, the spice became a monopoly of the kings of Portugal. English voyagers visited the Gold Coast in the 16th century, bringing thence in exchanging for European goods, gold, ivory, pepper, and Grains of Paradise. The pepper was doubtless that of Piper Clusii (p. 530). Grains of paradise, often called simply grains, were anciently used as a condiment like pepper. They were also employed with cinnamon. and ginger in making the spiced wine called hippocras, in vogue during the 14th and 15th centuries. In the hands of modern botanists, the plant affording this drug has been the subject of a complication of errors which it is needless to discuss. Suffice it to say, that Amomum Granum Paradisi as described by Linnæus cannot be identified;-that in 1817, Afzelius, a Swedish botanist, who resided some years at Sierra Leone, published a description of " Amomum Granum Paradisi? Linn.," but that the specimen of it alleged to have been received from him, and now preserved in the herbarium of Sir J. E. Smith, belongs to another species. Under these circumstances, the name given to the grains of paradise plant by Roscoe, A. Melegueta, has been accepted as quite free from doubt.5 Description-The seeds are about of an inch in diameter, rather variable in form, being roundish, bluntly angular or somewhat pyramidal. They are hard, with a shining, reddish-brown, shagreen-like surface. The hilum is beak-shaped and of paler colour. The seeds when crushed are feebly aromatic, but have a most pungent and burning taste. Microscopic Structure-In structure, grains of paradise agree in most respects with cardamom seeds. Yet in the former, the cells of the albumen have very thin, delicate walls which are much more elongated. Of the testa, only the innermost layer agrees with the corresponding part of cardamom; whilst the middle layer has the cell walls so much thickened that only a few cavities, widely distant from one another, remain open. The outer layer of the testa consists of thick-walled cells, the cavities of which appear on transverse section, radially extended. The albumen is loaded with starch granules of 2 to 5 mkm. diameter, the whole amount in each cell being agglutinated, so as to form a coherent mass. Chemical Composition-Grains of paradise contain a small pro 1 G. di Barros, Asia, Venet. 1561. 33 (65). 2 Quoted at p. 530, note 3. 3 Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, ii. pt. 2.-First Voiage of the Primerose and Lion to Guinea and Benin, A.D. 1553. 4 Remedia Guineensia. Upsaliæ. p. 71. 5 I have repeatedly raised Amomum Melegueta from commercial Grains of Paradise, and have cultivated the plant for some years, obtaining not only flowers, but large wellripened fruits containing fertile seeds.D. H. portion of essential oil; 53 b. yielded us only 2 oz., equivalent to nearly 0.30 per cent. The oil is faintly yellowish, neutral, of an agreeable odour reminding one of the seeds, and of an aromatic, not acrid taste. It has a sp. gr. at 15.5° C., of 0.825. It is but sparingly soluble in absolute alcohol or in spirit of wine; but mixes clearly with bisulphide of carbon; it dissolves iodine without explosion. When saturated with dry hydrochloric gas, no solid compound is formed. The oil begins to boil at about 236° C., and the chief bulk of it distils at 257-258°: the residual part is a thick brownish liquid. Examined in a column of 50 mm. long, the crude oil deviates 1.9° to the left. The portion passing over at 257°-258° deviates 1·2°, the residue 2° to the left. The optical behaviour is consequently in favour of the supposition that the oil is homogeneous. This is corroborated by the results of three elementary analyses which lead to the formula, C20H320, or C10H16+ C10H160. In order to ascertain whether the seed contains a fatty oil, 10 grammes, powdered with quartz, were exhausted with boiling ether. This gave upon evaporation 0.583 grm. of a brown viscid residue, almost devoid of odour, but of intense pungency. As it was entirely soluble in glacial acetic acid or in spirit of wine, we may consider it a resin, and not to contain any fatty matter. The seeds, dried at 100° C., afforded us 2.15 per cent. of ash, which, owing to the presence of manganese, had a green hue. Commerce-Grains of paradise are chiefly shipped from the settlements on the Gold Coast, of which Cape Coast Castle and Accra are the more important. Official returns 2 show that the exports in 1871 from this district, were as follows:-to Great Britain 85,502 lb., the United States 35,630 Hb., Germany 28,501 b., France 27,125 b., Holland 14,250 Hb.-total, 191,011 Hb. (1705 cwt.) Uses The seeds are used in cattle medicines, occasionally as a condiment, but chiefly, we believe, to give a fiery pungency to cordials. ORCHIDACEÆ. SALEP. Radix Salep, Radix Satyrii; Salep; F. Salep; G. Salepknollen. Botanical Origin-Most, if not all, species of Orchis found in Europe and Northern Asia, are provided with tubers which, when duly prepared, are capable of furnishing salep. Of those actually so used, the following are the more important, namely-Orchis mascula L., O. Morio L., O militaris L., O. ustulata L., O. pyramidalis L., O. coriophora L., and O. longicruris Link. These species which have the tubers entire, are natives of the greater part of Central and Southern Europe, Turkey, the Caucasus and Asia Minor,3 1 This oil was obtained and tried in medicine in the beginning of the 17th century.Porta, De Distillatione, Romæ, 1608, lib. iv. c. 4. 2 Blue Book for the Colony of the Gold Coast in 1871. 3 Tchihatcheff enumerates 36 species of Orchis as occurring in Asia Minor.-Asa Mineure, Bot. ii. 1860. |