MYRTUS PIMENTA, ORD, XXIX. Hesperider, 548 
garden of his Grace: the Duke of Northumberland at Sion-House, 
where the plant is nowin full bloom. Pimento, or the berries of 
this species of myrtle, are chiefly imported into England from 
Jamaica, and hence the name Jamaica’ Pepper. It is also named 
All-spice from its taste being supposed to resemble that of many 
different species mixed together.—When the berries arrive at their 
full growth, but before they begin to ripen,® they are picked 
from the branches, and exposed to the sun for several. days, till 
they are sufficiently dried ; this operation is to be conducted with 
great care, observing that on the first and second day’s exposure 
they require to be turned very often, and always to be preserved’ 
from rain and the evening dews. After this process is completed,. 
which is known by the colour. and rattling of the seeds in the 
berries, they are put up in bags or hegsheads for the market. 
This spice, which was at first brought over for dietetic uses, has 
been long employed in the shops as a suecedaneunv to the more? 
costly oriental aromatics; ‘itis moderately warm, of an agreeable 
flavour, somewhat resembling that.ef a-mixture of cloves, cinna- 
mon, and nutmegs.. Distilled. with water it. yields an elegant 
essential oil,. so ponderous as te sink in the water, in taste mode- 
rately pungent, in smell and flavour approaching to oil of cloves, 
or rather a mixture of cloves and nutmegs. To rectified spitit 
it imparts, by. maceration.or digestion, the whole of its virtue: 
in distillation it gives over very little to this menstruum, nearly all 
its active matter-remaining concentrated in the inspissated extract. 
b. & Such of the berries as come to full maturity do, like many other seeds, lose 
that aromatic warmth for which they are esteemed, and acquire a taste perfectly 
like that of Juniper berries, which renders them a very agreeable food for the 
birds, the most industrious planters of these trees.” Browne, l.c, ‘* The berries 
ee ripe are of a dark purple colour, and, fall of a sweet pulp, which the birds 
devour greedily, and-muting the seeds, afterwards propagate these trees ist all parts - 
of the woods. It is thought that the seeds passing through them, in this manner, 
undergo some fermentation, which fits them better for vegetating than those 
gathered immediately. from. the Ss and I believe this is.the fact.” Long’s 
Jamaica, vol. 3. p. 703,. 
