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Elettaria
Elettaria is a genus of ginger-family plants native to India and Sri Lanka, best known through E. cardamomum (green or true cardamom), the commercially important spice grown for its aromatic seed pods. The key to growing it is warm, humid, shaded conditions with steady moisture.
Elettaria is a genus of flowering plants in the family Zingiberaceae. They are native to India and Sri Lanka, but cultivated and naturalized elsewhere. One member of the genus, E. cardamomum, known as green cardamom or true cardamom, is a commercially important spice used as a flavouring agent in many countries.
In 2018, several species were removed from Elettaria and placed in a new genus called Sulettaria. These species are recognized as of October 2018: A phylogenetic analysis published in 2024 found that Elettaria was a well-defined clade of seven species native to India and Sri Lanka, which is sister to the African genus Aframomum and the African and Neotropical genus Renealmia, and distinct from the Sri Lankan genera Cyphostigma and Srilankanthus.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Elettaria 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.
