244 A COMPENDIUM OF 
an inch long; taste warm, aromatic and slightly 
resembling the nutmeg; odor aromatic and fra- 
grant. Itcontains about 8 per cent of volatile oil, 
fat, resin, sugar, mucilage and proteids. Mace 
has nervine, tonic and stimulating properties, 
but is rarely used as a medicine, but much 
esteemed for its flavor in the culinary art. Its 
peculiarity lies in the fact that although a part 
and parcel of the Myristica, it is totally dis- 
similar in flavor, 
Myristica Nutmeg, Myristica Officinalis, M. 
Moschata or Myristica Fragrans.—Natural order 
Myristicaceze. Native of Molucca Islands and 
cultivated in Brazil, Southern India and the 
West Indies. Thenutmegis quite a large ever- 
green tree and adorned with shiny, smooth, 
green leaves, oblong and lanceolate in shape, 
With very acute apexes; flowers small, yellow 
and in axillary racemes; stamens and pistils on 
different trees or on same tree but in different 
flowers; fruits pear-shaped and about the same 
size; pericarp fleshy and usually splitting from 
the apex to the base in two equal parts, which 
are fleshy, thick and display the much-branched, 
orange-colored arillus, which is the mace of 
commerce. This arillus embraces the nut so 
closely as to leave furrows of a superficial char- 
acter on the seed. The seed, or nutmeg, as it 
is known in the stores, is either globular or 
ovoidal in form, about % to 1 inch long, of a 
light-brown color, and furrowed; the hilum and 
micropyle on the base and the chalza near the 
apex, connected by a groove, which corresponds 
to the usual raphe of most seeds. When un- 
limed the nutmeg has an oily surface. All the 
