The Great Cardamom Caper (Or How I Got Duped by an Impostor) – Gardenista

Once upon a time (well, in 2017), I wrote a post about a trio of gingers I was growing at home: ginger, turmeric, and cardamom. At least, I thought it was cardamom. While I warned would-be home-growers of cardamom not to expect its famously aromatic seeds, because the plants rarely flowered in captivity, I extolled the virtues of the plant’s “handsome leaves,” which had a “wonderful perfume, something between scented rose petals and incense,” and which I used to flavor dinners and drinks. My description of those scented leaves raised a botanically-informed eyebrow, whose owner left a surprising comment on the post. My cardamom was not cardamom, they said. And they were right. It appears that many—if not most—plants grown and sold as cardamom in the United Sates are not. Cardamom, that is.

Draw closer for the great mea culpa and an interesting tale. It’s not the most pressing issue of our times, but if you are plant-obsessed, it is intriguing.

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

I do have an excuse. The flourishing plant that I had been growing outdoors in summer and indoors in winter was sold to me by a highly reputable grower, Companion Plants, in Ohio. I did not expect my “cardamom” to bloom (or make seed), because all online sources explained wisely that plants overwintering indoors never would. So I settled happily for its low-maintenance, lush appearance and its fragrant leaves. The blooms would have confirmed the plant’s identity at once: True cardamom flowers at soil level, whereas the various false cardamoms bloom at the end of stems.

The fragrance of the leaves of the plant that I was growing is one of the keys to telling apart true cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) from so-called false cardamoms, which may be Alpinia nutans (sometimes called cinnamom ginger) and as well other species of Alpinia.

I have since seen false cardamom growing in more than one botanic garden’s tropical collection, confidently labeled Elletaria cardamomum. Curators? Go sniff your leaves. Now.

As soon as I read that 2020 comment on my erroneous post, I went hunting for information (and did not discover the identity of the commenter). The first good source remains perennially mysterious: a WordPress site dedicated to a single anonymous post, explaining the difference, in authoritative detail, between true cardamom and false. There are no other entries, and no contact information. “False cardamoms,” wrote the informed author, “(many Alpinias such as Alpinia nutans and A. calcarata), have fragrant leaves when rubbed or crushed.  The leaves of true cardamom ARE NOT FRAGRANT.” Their caps. I went and rubbed my healthy plant’s lush leaves yet again. They still smelled delicious. Oh, dear.

Real-person feedback from someone who was aware of the identity-crisis was required. It came  from Randy Myers, the eponymous proprietor of Randy’s Tropical Plants in Florida, who confirmed in an email that true cardamom does not have fragrant leaves. He was emphatic that the two plants in question are not actually lookalikes: “They are VERY  different from each other,” he wrote. (This issue seems to inspire caps.) He added, “I myself used to sell this plant as ‘true’ cardamom, because it was sold to me as true cardamom.” His own moment of enlightenment came when an Indonesian friend sent him pictures of a cardamom plantation there. And he decided against growing the real deal, because “even in Florida it requires a greenhouse… The truth is,” he concluded, “that Alpinia nutans, which is almost certainly what you have, is a much prettier, easier to grow, and ultimately more useful plant.”

Another commenter on that post of mine began to cultivate cardamom for sale more recently, going to meticulous lengths to describe the differences between the true and the false. Aaron Cagle is a biologist who owns a Wizard Tree Nursery, in Florida. Determined to offer genuine Elettaria cardamomum to customers, he propagated his plants from rhizomes acquired in India. The plants were healthy. And then they bloomed. Not as soil level, but at the end of stem. “Duped,” he wrote in a recent email to me.