CHAPTER III. 



PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLOWERS, OR FOR THE 

 ORGANS WHICH ENVELOP THEM. 



Clove — Caryophyllus ai^omaticus, Linnseus. 



The clove used for domestic purposes is the calix and 

 flower- bud of a plant belonging to the order of Myr- 

 tacese. Although the plant has been often described and 

 ver}^ well drawn from cultivated specimens, some doubt 

 remains as to its nature when wild. I spoke of it in my 

 Geographical Botany in 1855, but it does not appear 

 that the question has made any further progress since 

 then, which induces me to repeat here what I said then. 



" The clove must have come oi iginally from the Moluc- 

 cas," as Rumphius asserts,^ for its cultivation was limited 

 two centuries ago to a few little islands in this archipelago. 

 I cannot, however, find any proof that the true clove tree, 

 with peduncles and aromatic buds, has been found in a 

 wild state. Rumphius ^ considers that a plant of which 

 he gives a description, and a drawing under the name 

 Caryophylhirii sylvestre, belongs to the same species, and 

 this plant is wild throughout the Moluccas. A native 

 told him that the cultivated clove trees degenerate into 

 this form, and Rumphius himself found a plant of C. 

 sylvestre in a deserted plantation of cultivated cloves. 

 Nevertheless plate 3 differs from plate 1 of the cultivated 

 clove in the shape of the leaves and of the teeth of the 

 calix. I do not speak of plate 2, which appears to be an 



* ii. p. 3. ' ii. tab. 3. 



M 



