Martha's exotic Backyard in Israel

Elettaria cardamomum, Cardamom,
הל
Scientific name:  Elettaria cardamomum (L.) Maton
Common name:  Cardamom
Hebrew name:  הל
Arabic name:   حَبُّ الهال , Hhabb el hâl (Habbu al hal)
Family:   Zingiberaceae, זנגביליים

Flores em Israel, flores exóticas

Life form:  Herbaceous perennial plant
Stems:  90-120cm high
Leaves:  Alternate, linear-lanceolate, 40-60 cm long
Inflorescence:  Separate, horizontal stems that spread along the ground; 30-60 cm loose panicles with many small blossoms
Flowers:  White flowers each with a pink to violet-striped lip
Fruits:  Fruit is a green, three-sided oval capsule containing 15–20 dark, hard, angular seeds
Flowering Period:  March-April
Origin:  India to Malaysia

Elettaria cardamomum, Cardamom,הל


Derivation of the botanical name:
Elettaria is derived from Rheed's Elettari, which, in the South Indian Language Tamil, means granules of leaf. The elettaria cardamomum is described by Rheed in vol. ix of his Hortus Malabaricus. On the Malabar coast the plant is called ailum cheddy.
Cardamom is the dried, unripened fruit of Elettaria cardamomum. It grows wild in the Ghat Mountains on the Malabar Coast of SW India, in an area known as the Cardamom Hills.
  • The standard author abbreviation L. is used to indicate Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, the father of modern taxonomy.
  • The standard author abbreviation Maton is used to indicate William George Maton (1774 - 1835), an English physician, a polymath who had a special interest in botany.
Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein (1636 - 1691), a military man and a colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company and naturalist. Between 1670 and 1677 he served as a governor of Dutch Malabar and employed 25 people on his book Hortus Malabaricus, a comprehensive treatise that deals with the medicinal properties of the flora in the Indian state of Kerala.

The Cardamom plant mentioned by Linnaeus, in his Flora Zeylanica (1747), as "4 Amomum scapo bracteis alternis laxis caule breviore," may have been either the Malabar Cardamom ( Elettaria Cardamomum, Maton) or the Ceylon Cardamom {Elettaria major, Smith.)