IV 



CLOVES 169 



topped, but in Amboyna and other parts of the Eastern 

 Archipelago, where it grows to 20 or as much as 40 ft. 

 in height, it is advisable to top it so that the buds can 

 be easily reached by the pickers. Besides this work 

 there is little to be done to the plantation except weed- 

 ing where necessary when the plants are young, and 

 cleaning the trees of parasitic mistletoes, and of moss 

 and epiphytic ferns, to which they are rather liable, 

 destroying borers and other pests, and manuring, until 

 the trees commence to produce the flower buds. 



PESTS AND DISEASES 



There are not many recorded diseases of the clove 

 tree, but one of those known is a very troublesome and 

 destructive pest. It is a parasitic alga known as 

 Cephaleurus mycoidea, Karsten, or " Ked-spot." 



The attack of this parasite appears to the naked eye 

 as a dark red spot visible on both surfaces of the leaf, 

 more or less rounded or oval in outline, and from about 

 -JTJ in. across to ^ in. in diameter. Commencing quite 

 small, it increases gradually in size ; eventually the 

 spot becomes hard and black in the centre, with the oil 

 glands much enlarged and swollen, and at last the centre 

 becomes dead, greyish in colour, surrounded by a black 

 and outer red ring. The dead portion falls out, leaving 

 a circular hole in the leaf. The spots are scattered over 

 the leaf usually nearer to the edge than to the centre, 

 and frequently run into each other. The leaf is often 

 attacked when it has just opened, and before it has 

 attained its full green colouring, and in many cases it 

 appears that the bud is attacked and quite often destroyed. 

 In any case the attack seems to commence in the early 

 stages of the opening of the leaf. At length, when the 

 leaf is getting yellow and dying, the alga commences to 

 fruit on the under side of the leaf. In the blackened 

 spot can be seen with a lens some fine white hairs, 

 tipped with yellow. On examination with the micro- 

 scope these hairs are seen to be fine filaments, bearing at 



