| dc.description.abstract | Elettaria Maton is a small genus in the pantropical Zingiberaceae, comprising 11 species. Molecular data analyses have been widely used to reconstruct evolutionary history and to infer phylogenetic relationships, but to date no published molecular studies have included any representatives of Elettaria. In this study, I test the monophyly of Elettaria by using the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and the chloroplast trnL-F region. DNA samples were collected during my own fieldwork in Borneo and from capsules of cardamom sold commercially. In addition, I also benefited from samples collected during other expeditions and I also downloaded sequences from GenBank®. All samples for each DNA region were sequenced and aligned in one big matrix, before two different phylogenetic analyses were implemented: the maximum parsimony analysis and the maximum likelihood analysis. The produced cladograms revealed that Elettaria is not a monophyletic clade, but falls into minimum three separate clades. The Elettaria clade 3 contains the type species and is therefore the true Elettaria clade likely only to contain species from India and Sri Lanka. Elettaria clade 1 includes species from Sundaland. Several morphological differences separate clade 1 from the true cardamom. Anther dehiscence and fruit type seems good characters to separate the species within clade 1. Several samples from Sulawesi, including Elettariopsis kandariensis, are also included in clade 1 and the analayses indicate that the origin of these is likely to be from Sundaland after crossing Wallace s Line. Elettaria clade 2 consists of samples of a sterile but commercially important plant that is presently impossible to identify and, despite its distinct smell of cardamom, is unrelated to E. cardamomum. | eng |