folded and anastomosing towards the extremity, envelop- 
ing the nut almost entirely, and so tightly, as to form 
inequalities on its surface. The colour, when fresh, is a 
brilliant scarlet. When dry, it becomes much more horny, 
of a yellow-brown colour, and very brittle. Nut broadly 
ovate, or oval, the shell very hard, rugged dark-brown, 
glossy, about half a line thick, pale, and smooth within. 
This immediately envelopes the seed (the Nutmeg as sold 
in our shops) which is of an oval or elliptical form, pale 
brown, quite smooth, when first deprived of its shell, but 
soon becoming shrivelled, so as to have irregular, vertical 
lines or furrows on its surface. Its outside very thin; its 
imner substance or albumen is firm, but fleshy, whitish, but 
so traversed with red-brown veins, which abound in oil, as 
to appear beautifully marbled. Near the base of the albu- 
men, and imbedded in a cavity in its substance, is situated | 
the Embryo, which is large, fleshy, yellowish-white, rounded 
below, where is the radicle ; its cotyledons of two, large, 
somewhat foliaceous, plicate lobes, in the centre of which 
is seen the plumule. 
The true Nutmeg tree is a native of the Molucca, or Spice 
Islands, principally confined to that groupe denominated the 
islands of Banda, lying in lat. 4° 30' south: and there it bears _ 
both blossom and fruit at all seasons the year, and assists, — 
with other aromatic trees and shrubs, to form that atmosphere of 
fragrance, in the upper regions of the air, in which the natives 
believe the Birds of Paradise perpetually float. Long before 
the East India islands were discovered by the Portuguese, the _ 
Nutmeg, as well as the Clove, seems to have been known in 
urope, through the medium of Persia and Arabia, and since the 
year 1510, when the first Portuguese navigators visited those 
islands, they have probabl: been known as an article of commerce ; 
yet, down to Che: tinsel Linn xvs, nothing was known of the 
plant that produced this precious fruit; nor till M. Crs, 
director of the Royal Garden in the Isle of Franc 
Specimens and observations to the Chevalier de 
aa. 
Sins™ 
The Dutch havi possess ion of the Spice islands in 1619, en- 
couraged, te a an of their power, the hag ager x Ld 
u i ° _ and were anxious, for the gake of the 
ae tmeg in a few of them, — ~~ scanpels 
