Q.Tamarindus indica is indigenous to

Spices are aromatic plant products, sweet or bitter, added in small quantities during cooking to improve flavour (e.g. black pepper), while condiments are sharp-tasting substances usually added after cooking (e.g. curry leaves); both have been traded and used for millennia, and the historic search for pepper itself drove the Spanish and Portuguese exploratory sea voyages to India. Cardamom, the 'Queen of Spices', and Black Pepper, the 'King of Spices', are both major Western Ghats cash crops. Turmeric, with India as the world's largest producer/consumer/exporter and Erode in Tamil Nadu the largest wholesale turmeric market, serves both as a culinary/dyeing colourant and, through its curcumin content, as a medicinally active antioxidant compound. Chillies, native to South America, range in pungency (measured in Scoville Heat U …