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| Latin: |
Fructus Amomi Rotundus |
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| Origin: |
Cardamon seed is the ripe seed, or fruit, of the perennial plant Amomum kravanh Pierre ex Gagnep., or Amomum compactum Soland ex Maton, of the Zingiberaceae, or ginger family. The seeds have a warm, slightly pungent, and highly aromatic flavour somewhat reminiscent of camphor. Besides being used as medicinal herb, they are also a popular seasoning in Oriental dishes and in Scandinavian pastries.
Native to the moist forests of southern India, cardamon seed may be collected from wild plants; but most is cultivated in India, Sri Lanka, China, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Guatemala. Leafy shoots arise 1.5 to 6 m from the branching rootstock. Flowering shoots, approximately 1 m long, may be upright or sprawling. Each bears numerous flowers about 5 cm in diameter with greenish petals and a purple-veined white lip.
The whole fruit, 0.8 to 1.5 cm, is a green, three-sided oval capsule containing 15 to 20 dark, reddish brown to brownish black, hard, angular seeds. They are picked or clipped from the stems just before maturity, cleansed, and dried in the sun or in a heated curing chamber. Cardamon may be bleached to a creamy white colour in the fumes of burning sulfur. After curing and drying, the small stems of the capsules are removed by winnowing. Decorticated cardamom consists of husked dried seeds.
In China, cardamon is cultivated mostly in Yunnan, Guangdong, Guangxi and other parts of China. Reaped in autumn, the seed is dried in the sun and pounded for use when raw.
Also spelled as Cardamom. |
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| Properties: |
| Pungent in flavor, warm in nature, it is related to the lung and stomach channels. |
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| Functions: |
| Removes dampness, promotes the flow of qi, warms the spleen and stomach and arrests vomiting and diarrhea. |
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| Applications: |
1. To treat abdominal distention and poor appetite due to stagnation of dampness and qi in the spleen and stomach:
a) Abdominal distention and poor appetite:
Cardamon seed is often used together with official magnolia bark, dried tangerine peel, etc.
b) Initial attacks of damp-warm syndromes mainly caused by pathogenic dampness with such symptoms as tightness in the chest without any hunger and turbid and greasy tongue coating:
Cardamon seed is used in combination with talcum, Job's tears (Semen Coicis), apricot kernels, etc., e.g., Sanren Tang.
c) Initial attacks of damp-warm syndromes mainly caused by pathogenic heat:
Cardamon seed can be used together with skullcap root (Radix Scutellariae), talcum, etc., e.g., Huangqin Huashi Tang.
2. To treat vomiting:
a) Vomiting:
Cardamon seed can be ground alone into powder for oral administration or used in combination with such herbs as agastache (Herba Agastachis) or cablin patchouli (Herba Pogostemonis), pinellia tuber, etc.
b) Infantile vomiting of milk due to cold in the stomach:
Cardamon seed can be ground together with amomum fruit and licorice into fine powder for frequent feeding into the mouth. |
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| Dosage and Administration: |
3-6 g.
Decoct cardamon seed for oral administration. It is best to include it in medicinal powder. It should be decocted later if included in a decoction. |
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| Cautions on Use: |
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| Reference Materials: |
Kai Bao Materia Medica : "To treat accumulation of cold-qi, vomiting and regurgitation by promoting digestion and sending down abnormally rising qi."
Explanations of the Canon of Materia Medica : "The cardamon seed displays its functions entirely by means of its aromatic smell, and its power will be reduced as soon as it is fried. Grind it finely for inclusion in a decoction. It is especially efficacious to drink the decoction at the boiling point." |
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| Toxic or Side Effects: |
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| Modern Researches: |
The essential oil of cardamon seed occurs in large parenchyma cells underlying the epidermis of the seed coat. The essential oil content varies from 2 to 10 percent; its principal components are cineole and a-terpinyl acetate.
Pharmacologically, this herb can promote the secretion of gastric juices, increase the peristalsis of the stomach and intestines, check abnormal fermentation in the intestines and remove accumulated qi from the stomach and intestines. Therefore, it plays a positive role in strengthening the stomach with its aromatic property. It can also arrest vomiting.
The essential oil in cardamon seed can protect gastrointestinal organs and the liver.
For self protection, the outer skin (bark) of many plants contains essential oil, which in turn has elements that serve as an immediate chemical defense against herbivores and pathogens. How? There is an element called hydroxynitrile glucoside in essential oil. This element will release toxic hydrogen cyanide by endogenous plant glucosidase upon tissue disruption (see Anne Vinther Morant, Kirsten Jorgensen, Charlotte Jorgensen, Suzanne Michelle Paquette, Raquel Sanchez-Perez, Birger Lindberg Moller, and Soren Bak, "beta-Glucosidases as Detonators of Plant Chemical Defense," Phytochemistry Vol. 69, Issue 9 (June 2008), pp. 1,795-1,813).
Glucosidase is a catalyzing enzyme that improves healthy functions of our body. It is a lipase that decomposes fat; it can also check inflammation and improve memory (see Mikako Sakurai, Masayuki Sekiguchi, Ko Zushida, Kazuyuki Yamada, Satoshi Nagamine, Tomohiro Kabuta and Keiji Wada, "Reduction in memory in passive avoidance learning, exploratory behaviour and synaptic plasticity in mice with a spontaneous deletion in the ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 gene," European Journal of Neuroscience Vol. 27, Issue 3 (February 2008), pp. 691-701).
The water decoction of the shell can inhibit Shigella shigae. |
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