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Amomum villosum
Also called Malabar Cardamom, Tavoy Cardamom, Villous Amomum, Bastard Cardamom, False Cardamom
Wurfbainia villosa is an evergreen ginger-family plant, 1.5 to 3 m tall, grown for its aromatic dried fruit capsules used as a cardamom-like spice. It grows best in shaded, humid conditions under trees.
Wurfbainia villosa, also known by its basionym Amomum villosum, (Chinese: 砂仁; pinyin: shārén) is a plant in the ginger family which is grown as a cardamom-like spice throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Like cardamom, the plant is cultivated for its fruits, dry capsules containing strongly aromatic seeds. W. villosa is an evergreen monocotyledonous plant 1.5 to 3.0 m in height, the branches and leaves of which are similar to those of ginger. It grows in the shade of trees and has a reproductive peculiarity whereby those flowers borne on creeping growth at ground level will set fruit, while those borne on aerial branches will not. It blooms in March and April, the colour, translucency and waxy lustre of the flowers being likened traditionally to those of white jade.
The seed of Wurfbainia villosa is used as a spice in Chinese cuisine, in which it can also form an ingredient in certain recipes for the traditional spice mixture known as five-spice powder. From as early as the time of the Tang dynasty, many ancient books, including, notably, the Compendium of Materia Medica, have been unanimous in describing the taste of W. villosa as "acrid, fresh, and slightly bitter".
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Wurfbainia villosa 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.
