468 SCIENTIFIC AND APPLIED PHARMACOGNOSY 



15 per cent of volatile ether extract, not less than 12 per cent of 

 quercitannic acid (calculated from the total oxygen absorbed by the 

 aqueous extract), not more than 10 per cent of crude fiber, not more 

 than 7 per cent of total ash, nor more than T 5 ^ per cent of ash insolu- 

 ble in hydrochloric acid. (U. S. Dept. Agric.) 



Adulterants. Clove stalks are less aromatic and yield from 4 to 7 

 per cent of volatile oil. The so-called mother of cloves is the nearly 

 ripe fruit of Jambosa (Caryophyllus or clove tree, which furnishes 

 cloves. The fruit is an ovoid, brownish berry about 25 mm. in 

 length; it is less aromatic than cloves and contains large, branching 

 stone cells, or short bast fibers, and numerous pear-shaped or trun- 

 cated starch grains from 0.010 to 0.040 mm. in diameter. It is stated 

 that artificial cloves have been made by using starch, gum and oil of 

 cloves; or from dough and clove powder. These are easily distin- 

 guished by adding the spurious article to water, when the compound 

 disintegrates. 



PIMENTA. Allspice. The fruit of Pimenta officinalis (Fam. 

 Myrtaceae), a tree indigenous to the West Indies, Mexico, Central 

 America and Venezuela, where it is also cultivated, especially in 

 Jamaica. The panicles are collected when the fruit is full grown 

 but still green, and dried in the sun, the fruit being subsequently 

 separated. 



Description. Drupe dry, inferior, sub-globular, 5 to 7 mm. in 

 diameter; externally dark brown, glandular-punctate; summit 

 with four minute calyx teeth or forming a minute ring and surround- 

 ing the remnants of the somewhat depressed style; base with scar or 

 pedicel or occasionally with a pedicel 4 to 6 mm. in length; pericarp 

 about 1 mm. in thickness; internally light brown, 2-locular, 2-seeded, 

 dissepiments thin; seeds campylotropous, plano-convex, slightly 

 reniform, about 4 mm. in length and about 3 mm. in thickness, exter- 

 nally reddish-brown, smooth, somewhat wrinkled, shiny, internally 

 dark brown, reserve layer wanting, embryo spirally curved, with a 

 long, thick radicle and minute cotyledons; odor and taste aromatic, 

 supposed to resemble those of a mixture of cloves and other spices, 

 whence the name " Allspice." 



INNER STRUCTURE. See Fig. 203. 



Powder. Dark brown; rosette aggregates of calcium oxalate, 

 occasionally in monoclinic prisms, from 0.010 to 0.020 mm. in diam- 

 eter; starch grains single or 2- to 3-compound, the individual grains 

 somewhat spheroidal, from 0.003 to 0.015 mm. in diameter, each 

 with a distinct cleft at the middle; stone cells nearly isodiametric, 

 thin-walled, with numerous simple pores and branched canals and 



