136 SPICES 



CHAP. 



it before the seed inside is ripe. This disease has 

 been studied by Dr. J. M. Janse, who published an 

 account of it in the Annales du Jar din Buitenzorg, 

 ser. ii. vol. 1 (1899), and the Mededeeling uit S' lands 

 Plantation, xxviii. The splitting of the husk of the 

 nutmeg is effected partly by the increased tension 

 between the seed and the husk, the seed growing a 

 little faster. This, however, ceases when the testa of 

 the seed commences to harden. But the dehiscence is 

 further continued by the growth radially of a special 

 part of the husk in the form of a small plate just at 

 the point where the nut is attached to the husk. The 

 development of this causes the splitting of the husk. 

 A third force consists in the developing tension of the 

 husk itself. 



The fungus attacking the husk interferes with the 

 nutrition and produces as a result premature dehiscence. 

 The more the nutrition is interfered with the sooner the 

 husk opens, so that if the disease is bad the fruit splits 

 before the testa becomes black, and mace and testa are 

 still white, and these failures are known as white 

 nutmegs and are valueless. If the fruit is affected later 

 and in only one spot, the development may progress 

 so far that the mace is red and the testa black, only 

 showing a little brown spot not very hard, like the rest 

 of the testa, at the base. 



The disease is by no means uncommon, and appears 

 as little brown spots on the husk. The white nutmegs 

 are quite useless, but they should be destroyed, to 

 prevent further spreading of the disease, by husk and 

 all being burnt. 



The life history of the fungus does not appear to 

 have been described, nor can I find that it has been 

 identified. The spot of decay does not penetrate deeply 

 into the husk and might be -considered too insignificant 

 to account for the destruction of the fruit, but it is un- 

 doubtedly, I think, as Janse has shown, the cause of the 

 premature dehiscence and production of white nutmegs. 



The account of "Nutmeg Canker" in Penang, by 



