Native to the moist forests of southern India, cardamom fruit may be collected from wild plants; but most is cultivated in India, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala. Leafy shoots arise 1.5 to 6 metres (5 to 20 feet) from the branching rootstock. Flowering shoots, approximately 1 metre long, may be upright or sprawling; each bears numerous flowers about 5 cm (2 inches) in diameter with greenish petals and a purple-veined white lip.

The whole fruit, 0.8 to 1.5 cm, is a green, three-sided oval capsule containing 15 to 20 dark, reddish brown to brownish black, hard, angular seeds. They are picked or clipped from the stems just before maturity, cleansed, and dried in the sun or in a heated curing chamber. Cardamom may be bleached to a creamy white colour in the fumes of burning sulfur. After curing and drying, the small stems of the capsules are removed by winnowing. Decorticated cardamom consists of husked dried seeds. The essential oil occurs in large parenchyma cells underlying the epidermis of the seed coat. The essential oil content varies from 2 to 10 percent; its principal components are cineole and α-terpinyl acetate.

The name cardamom is sometimes applied to other similar spices of the ginger family (Amomum, Aframomum, Alpinia) used in cuisines of Africa and Asia or as commercial adulterants of true cardamoms.