_Semina Cardamomi majoris_, _Piper Melegueta_; _Grains of Paradise_,
_Guinea Grains_, _Melegueta Pepper_; F. _Grains de Paradis_,
_Maniguette_; G. _Paradieskörner_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Amomum Melegueta_ Roscoe—an herbaceous, reed-like
plant, 3 to 5 feet high, producing on a scape rising scarcely an inch
above the ground, a delicate, wax-like, pale purple flower, which is
succeeded by a smooth, scarlet, ovoid fruit, 3 to 4 inches in length,
rising out of sheathing bracts.[2420]
[2415] Figured in Pereira, _Materia Medica_ ii. part i. (1855) 250, and
already in Mattioli’s _Commentar. in Dioscorid._ lib. i. (1558) 27.
[2416] So named by Forskal in 1775 (_Materia Medica Kahirina_, 151. n.
41) who says “_frequens in re culinariâ et medicâ, loco piperis_.”
[2417] _Letters on the commerce of Abyssinia_, etc., addressed to the
Foreign Office, 1852; 4. 16. 20.
[2418] _Reise nach Abessinien_, Jena, 1868. 223.
[2419] _Journal of the discovery of the source of the Nile_, 1863. 648.
[2420] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s _Medical Plants_, part 30 (1878).
It varies considerably in the dimensions of all its parts, according to
more or less favourable circumstances of soil and climate. In Demerara,
where the plant grows luxuriously in cultivation, the fruit is as large
as a fine pear, measuring with its tubular part as much as 5 inches in
length by 2 inches in diameter; on the other hand, in some parts of
West Africa it scarcely exceeds in size a large filbert. It has a thick
fleshy pericarp, enclosing a colourless acid pulp of pleasant taste, in
which are imbedded the numerous seeds.
_A. Melegueta_ is widely distributed in tropical West Africa, occurring
along the coast region from Sierra Leone to Congo. The littoral region,
termed, in allusion to its producing grains of paradise, the _Grain
Coast_, _Pepper Coast_, or _Melegueta Coast_, lies between Liberia and
Cape Palmas; or, more exactly, between Capes Mesurado (Montserrado)
and St. Andrews. The Gold Coast, whence the seeds are now principally
exported, is in the Gulf of Guinea, further eastward.
Of the distribution of the plant in the interior we have no exact
information. Yet the name Melegueta refers to the ancient empire of
Melle (Meli or Melly), formerly extending over the upper Niger region,
about in 4° E. long., and then inhabited by the Mandingos, now by
the Fulbe or Fullãn. Messena is their most considerable place. In
that region _Amomum Melegueta_ may be indigenous, or the spice, being
formerly exported from the coast by way of Melle, took its commercial
name in allusion to the latter.
=History=—There is no evidence that the ancients were acquainted with
the seeds called _Grains of Paradise_; nor can we find any reference
to them earlier than an incidental mention under their African name,
in the account[2421] of a curious festival held at Treviso in A.D.
1214: it was a sort of tournament, during which a sham fortress, held
by twelve noble ladies and their attendants, was besieged and stormed
by assailants armed with flowers, fruits, sweetmeats, perfumes, and
spices, amongst which last figure—_Melegetæ_!
After this period there are many notices, showing the seeds to have
been in general use. Nicolas Myrepsus,[2422] physician at the court
of the Emperor John III. at Nicœa, in the 13th century, prescribed
Μνεγέται; and his contemporary, Simon of Genoa,[2423] at Rome, names
the same drug as _Melegete_ or _Melegette_. _Grana Paradisi_ are
enumerated among spices sold at Lyons[2424] in 1245, and were used
about the same time by the Welsh Physicians of Myddvai under the name
_Grawn Paris_.[2425] They also occur as _Greyn Paradijs_ in a tariff of
duties levied at Dordrecht in Holland[2426] in 1358. And again among
the spices used by John, king of France, when in England, A.D. 1359-60,
_Grainne de Paradis_ is repeatedly mentioned.[2427]
In the earliest times the drug was conveyed by the long land journey
from the Mandingo country through the desert to the Mediterranean
port, Monte di Barca (Mundibarca), on the coast of Tripoli. There the
spice was shipped by the Italians, and being the produce of an unknown
region and held in great esteem, it acquired the name of _Grains of
Paradise_,[2428] or also, as already stated at page 650, that of
_Semina Cardamomi Majoris_. That they came from Melli is expressly
stated also by Leonhard Fuchs.[2429] Small quantities of the drug still
reach Tripoli in the same way.
Towards the middle of the 14th century, there began to be direct
commercial intercourse with tropical Western Africa. Margry[2430]
relates that ships were sent thither from Dieppe in 1364, and took
cargoes of ivory and _malaguette_ from near the mouth of the river
Cestos, now Sestros. A century later the coast was visited by the
Portuguese, who termed it _Terra de malaguet_. The celebrated
Columbus also, who traded to the coast of Guinea, called it _Costa di
Maniguetta_. Soon after this period the spice became a monopoly of the
kings of Portugal.
[2421] Rolandini Patavini _Chronica_—Pertz, _Monumenta Germaniæ
historica; scriptores_, xix. (1866) 45-46.—Yet _qâfala_, occurring in
Edrisi, probably means grains of paradise.
[2422] _De Compositione Medicamentorum; de antidotis_, cap. xxii.
[2423] _Clavis Sanationis_, Venet. 1510. 19. 42.
[2424] _Bibliothek d. lit. Vereins_, Stuttgart, xvi. p. xxiii.
[2425] _Meddygon Myddfai_ (see Appendix) 283. 286.
[2426] Sartorius and Lappenberg, _Geschichte der Deutschen Hansa_, ii.
448.
[2427] Doüet d’Arcq, 219, 266—see p. 533, note 2.
[2428] G. di Barros, _Asia_, Venet. 1561. 33 (65).
[2429] _De componendorum miscendorumque medicamentorum ratione_, libr.
iv. Lugduni, 1556. 50.
[2430] Quoted at p. 589, note 4.
English voyagers visited the Gold Coast in the 16th century, bringing
thence in exchanging for European goods, gold, ivory, pepper, and
_Grains of Paradise_.[2431] The pepper was doubtless that of _Piper
Clusii_ (p. 589).
Grains of paradise, often called simply _grains_, were anciently used
as a condiment like pepper. They were also employed with cinnamon and
ginger in making the spiced wine called _hippocras_, in vogue during
the 14th and 15th centuries.
In the Portuguese and Spanish idioms, the name _Melegueta_, spelt in
various ways, as _Melegette_, _Melligetta_, _Mallaguetta_, _Manigete_,
_Maniguette_, was subsequently also applied to other substitutes of
pepper, and even to that spice itself.
In the hands of modern botanists, the plant affording grains of
paradise has been the subject of a complication of errors which it is
needless to discuss. Suffice it to say, that _Amomum Granum Paradisi_
as described by Linnæus cannot be identified;—that in 1817, Afzelius,
a Swedish botanist, who resided some years at Sierra Leone, published
a description of “_Amomum Granum Paradisi_? Linn.,”[2432] but that
the specimen of it alleged to have been received from him, and now
preserved in the herbarium of Sir J. E. Smith, belongs to another
species. Under these circumstances, the name given to the grains of
paradise plant by Roscoe, _A. Melegueta_, has been accepted as quite
free from doubt.[2433]
=Description=—The seeds are about ⅒ of an inch in diameter, rather
variable in form, being roundish, bluntly angular or somewhat
pyramidal. They are hard, with a shining, reddish-brown, shagreen-like
surface. The hilum is beak-shaped and of paler colour. The seeds when
crushed are feebly aromatic, but have a most pungent and burning taste.
=Microscopic Structure=—In structure, grains of paradise agree in most
respects with cardamom seeds. Yet in the former, the cells of the
albumen have very thin, delicate walls which are much more elongated.
Of the testa, only the innermost layer agrees with the corresponding
part of cardamom; whilst the middle layer has the cell-walls so much
thickened that only a few cavities, widely distant from one another,
remain open. The outer layer of the testa consists of thick-walled
cells, the cavities of which appear, on transverse section, radially
extended. The albumen is loaded with starch granules of 2 to 5 mkm.
diameter, the whole amount in each cell being agglutinated, so as to
form a coherent mass.
=Chemical Composition=—Grains of paradise contain a small proportion of
essential oil; 53 lb. yielded us only 2½ oz., equivalent to nearly 0·30
per cent.[2434] The oil is faintly yellowish, neutral, of an agreeable
odour reminding one of the seeds, and of an aromatic, not acrid taste.
It has a sp. gr. at 15·5° C., of 0·825. It is but sparingly soluble
in absolute alcohol or in spirit of wine; but mixes clearly with
bisulphide of carbon; it dissolves iodine without explosion. When
saturated with dry hydrochloric gas, no solid compound is formed.
[2431] Hakluyt, _Principal Navigations_, ii. pt. 2.—First Voiage of the
_Primerose and Lion_ to Guinea and Benin, A.D. 1553.
[2432] _Remedia Guineensia_, Upsaliæ, p. 71.
[2433] I have repeatedly raised _Amomum Melegueta_ from commercial
Grains of Paradise, and have cultivated the plant for some years,
obtaining not only flowers, but large well-ripened fruits containing
fertile seeds.—D. H.
[2434] This oil was obtained and tried in medicine in the beginning of
the 17th century.—Porta, _De Distillatione_, Romæ, 1608, lib. iv. c. 4.
The oil begins to boil at about 236° C., and the chief bulk of it
distills at 257°-258°: the residual part is a thick brownish liquid.
Examined in a column of 50 mm. long, the crude oil deviates 1·9° to the
left. The portion passing over at 257°-258° deviates 1·2°, the residue
2° to the left. The optical behaviour is consequently in favour of the
supposition that the oil is homogeneous. This is corroborated by the
results of three elementary analyses which lead to the formula C₂₀H₃₂O.
In order to ascertain whether the seed contains a fatty oil, 10
grammes, powdered with quartz, were exhausted with boiling ether. This
gave upon evaporation 0·583 grm. of a brown viscid residue, almost
devoid of odour, but of intense pungency. As it was entirely soluble in
glacial acetic acid or in spirit of wine, we may consider it a _resin_,
and not to contain any fatty matter.
The seeds, dried at 100° C., afforded us 2·15 per cent. of ash, which,
owing to the presence of manganese, had a green hue.
=Commerce=—Grains of paradise are chiefly shipped from the settlements
on the Gold Coast, of which Cape Coast Castle and Accra are the more
important. Official returns[2435] show that the exports in 1871 from
this district were as follows:—to Great Britain 85,502 lb., the United
States 35,630 lb., Germany 28,501 lb., France 27,125 lb., Holland
14,250 lb.—total, 191,011 lb. (1705 cwt.) In 1872 the total shipments
amounted to the enormous quantity of 620,191 lb., valued at £10,303; in
1875 only 151,783 lb., valued at £912, were exported.
=Uses=—The seeds are used in cattle medicines, occasionally as a
condiment, but chiefly, we believe, to give a fiery pungency to
cordials.