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]

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.

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.

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.