View source for Amomum

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Amomum (Greek-made name, referring to the qualities as antidote for poisons). Zingiberaceae. Hothouse ginger-like herbs with narrow entire leaves, grown Tor the habit and foliage and for the flowers in dense cone-like spikes.

Amomums are aromatic tropical and subtropical plants, spreading by means of hard rhizomes and forming dense masses of handsome erect or spreading annual sts. and linear, lanceolate or elliptic Lvs.: fls. in dense cone-like spikes or racemes, half hidden in the floral-bracts; calyx funnel-shaped, split down one side, only slightly toothed; corolla-tube cylindrical, little longer than the calyx, the upper lobe curved, the 2 lower spreading and narrow; Up (staminode) large and petal-like, mostly obovate-cuneate; fertile stamen with a narrow or a very slender filament: fr. ovoid, with a thick and fleshy exterior.—About 50 species in tropics of Asia, Afr. and Pacific Isls., allied to Alpinia and Elettaria. The &quot;grains of paradise&quot; are amomum seeds, of several species, probably mostly of A. Granum- Paradisii and A. Melegueta; they are used, or have been used, for flavoring beverages. Cardamons (aromatic tonic seeds) are secured from species of Amomum and from Elettaria.

Some of the amomums are extremely handsome as foliage plants, apart from their flowers. Many of the species nave been confused with and included with the genus Alpinia, but may be readily distinguished from the flower-clusters, being borne on erect-solitary peduncles arising from the base of the leafy stem or direct from the rhizome, the inflorescence in Alpinia being always terminal on the leafy shoots. They thrive in an open soil, rich in humus and with abundance of water during the growing period. They require a rest of several months and to be kept on the dry side, but so dry in the case of the evergreen species as to the leaves to shrivel.
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