Java Cardamom

Overview

Native to Assam, Bangladesh, China South-Central, East Himalaya, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam. The plant is sometimes gathered from the wild for its edible fruits and young shoots. The fruits are eaten raw, cooked or candied. The fresh, sweet, juicy aril around ripe seeds is considered a delicacy. Young shoots, young inflorescences and young fruits are eaten as vegetables cooked with rice. It assessed as 'Data Deficient' in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (2013)

Vernacular Names

Chang guo sha ren (Chinese), Chelumpa (India).

Agroecology

Scattered in forests, especially on moist humus-rich soils. Grows in shady forests and hill slopes in south-west China at elevations of 600-800 metres.

Morphology

• Rhizome - thick.
• Leaves - ellipic-lanceolate, 50-100 cm × 10-18 cm, fragrant when bruised.
• Fruit - berry-like, crowded in spiciform racemes, ovoid to ovoid-oblong, 3-5 cm × 2-3 cm, fleshy, with 7-11 prominent ribs, greenish.
• Seeds - ovoid-globose, up to 5 mm × 3 mm, blackish-brown, almost entirely enclosed by a greyish-white, juicy, pulpy aril.

Cultivation

Generative propagation is by seed, and vegetative propagation is by cuttings of the root-bearing tips of the rhizome.

Chemical Constituents

Flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, steroids, tannins, and saponins.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

• In Indonesia, traditionally, leaves or rhizomes decoction is used as antiseptic by postpartum women to clean feminine area, and to treat rheumatism and arthritis.
• In India, rhizomes is used to treat arthritis and abscess.
• In Philippines, rhizomes decoction is used in the treatment of cough, and leaves decoction is to treat diarrhea.