Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Black cardamom

Amomum subulatum

Also called Bengal Cardamom, Indian Cardamom, Nepal Cardamom, Greater Cardamom, Hill Cardamom, Large Cardamom, Winged Cardamom

Black cardamom
Photo: Brian Arthur, CC BY-SA 3.0

Black cardamom is a perennial rhizomatous herb in the ginger family, grown for its large, smoky-flavoured seed pods. It needs a warm, humid, shaded tropical climate with rich, moist soil.

Family
Zingiberaceae (Ginger family)
Grows as
Perennial
Light
Part shade, Shade
Water
Keep soil consistently moist, but not waterlogged, especially during the growing season.
Soil
Rich, well-drained, humus-rich forest-type soil, slightly acidic.
Temperature
18–30 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Moderate
Safety
Not known to be toxic
Edible
Yes, some parts
Native range
Nepal to C. China
Climate
wet tropical

About

Amomum subulatum, also known as black cardamom, hill cardamom, Bengal cardamom, greater cardamom, Indian cardamom, Nepal cardamom, winged cardamom, big cardamon, or brown cardamom, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the family Zingiberaceae. Its seed pods have a strong, camphor-like flavour, with a smoky character derived from the method of drying.

Other Amomum plants

Cardamom

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Black cardamom by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…