Botanical Name : Amomum subulatum
Sanskrit name : Aindri, Sthula ela, Brihatupakunchika
English Name :  Larger or Greater Cardamom, Nepal Cardamom                  
Family: Zingiberaceae                      

Plant Part used: Seed

Description of  Amomum subulatum:
It grows wild in the eastern Himalayas and cultivated in West Bengal, Assam, Sikkim and Nepal.It is a tall and perennial herb, with leafy stems. Rhizomes are creeping and branched, with several erect leafy shoots and panicles. The leaves are oblong-lanceolate, 30-60 cm in length, glabrous and the tip is acuminate. The spikes are globose, very dense, and shortly peduncled. Calyx and corolla tube segments are sub-obtuse, shorter than the tube and the upper one is cuspidate. Lip is obovate-cuneate, emarginate, yellowish white and rather longer than the corolla-segments. Capsules are 2.5 cm long, irregularly obcordate, echinate, trilocular, dark red-brown in color, containing several aromatic seeds in each cell and held together by a viscous sugary pulp. The fruit is anterio-posteriorly flattened, having 15-20 irregular, dentate-undulate wings which extend from the apex to downward for two-thirds of its length. There are three well-known cultivated varieties in Sikkim.

Constituents:
Cardmonin, Alpinetin and Subulin were isolated from seeds. The major constituent of the essential oil from the seeds is cineol (64.94 %).

Toxicology:
There is no adverse effect reported on usage of this plant.

Medicinal Uses:
Medicinally, the seeds are credited with stimulant and astringent properties. It is used in gastrointestinal and genito-urinary complaints.

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