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 to 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 to 20 irregular, dentate-undulate wings which extend from the apex to downward for two-thirds of its length.

Stimulant, stomachic, carminative, hypoglycemic (rhizome and root); deters growth of keratinophilic fungi (seed oil); increases the secretion of gastric juices, stimulant, astringent and alexipharmic (seed).

Black Cardamom
Amomum subulatum
Large Cardamom

Petunidin 3.5-diglucoside and leucocyanidin-3-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside, subulin, sabinine, terpinine, chalconecardamonin and alpha and beta-pinine (seed).

Tonic for heart and liver, vomiting, biliousness, indigestion, abdominal pains, gravel and rectal diseases (seed). A decoction of seeds is used as a gargle in affections of the teeth and gum.

Hypoglycemia; use with care during pregnancy

Chandel et al., Biodiversity in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in India.