Note 508 — BOOK XII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF TREES.

Still known in pharmacy as “cardamum.” It is not, however, as Pliny says, found in Arabia, but in India; from which it probably reached the Greeks and Romans by way of the Red Sea. There are three kinds known in modern commerce, the large, the middle size, and the small. M. Bonastre, “Journal de Pharmacie,” May, 1828, is of opinion, that the word cardamomum signifies “amomum in pods,” the Egyptian kardh meaning “pod,” or “husk.” It is, however, more generally supposed, that the Greek word, καρδία, “heart,” enters into its composition.