CABYOPHYLLI. 283 



expeditions for the purpose of destroying any young trees that might 

 have accidentally sprung up. This policy, the object of which was to 

 confine the growth of the spice to a group of smaU islands of which 

 AmbojTia is the largest, has but very recently been abandoned : though 

 the cultivation of the spice was free in all other localities, the dove 

 piirks of the Amboyna islands remained the property of the Dutch 

 Government. The original Moluccas or Clove Islands now produce no 

 cloves at all. 



The enterprise of Poivre, the French governor of Mauritius and 

 Bourbon, so far eluded the vigilance of the Dutch, that both clove and 

 nutmeg- trees were introduced into those islands in the year 1770.^ 

 The clove-tree was carried thence to Cayenne in 1793, and to Zanidbar 

 about the end of the century. 



Crawfurd,2 in an excellent article of which we have made free 

 use, aptly remarks that it is difficult to understand how the clove 

 first came to the notice of foreign nations, considering the well- 

 ascertained fact that it has never been used as a condiment or in any 

 other way by the inhabitants of the islands of which it is a native. 

 We may observe however that there were some singular supersti- 

 tions among the islanders with regard to the so-called Royal Clove 

 (p. 287), a tree of which on the island of Makiyan was long supposed 

 to be unique. 



Collection — The flower-buds of the clove-tree when yoimg are 

 nearly white, but afterwards become green and lastly bright red, when 

 they must at once be gathered. This in Zanzibar is done by hand ; 

 each clove is picked singly, a moveable stage the height of the tree 

 being used to enable the labourers to reach the upper branches. The 

 buds are then simply dried in the sim, by which they acquire the 

 familiar dark brown tint of the commercial article. The gathering 

 takes place twice a year ; in the Moluccas where the harvest occurs in 

 June and December, the cloves are partly gathered by hand, and partly 

 beaten off the tree by bamboos on to cloths spread beneath. The 

 annual j-ield of a good tree is about 4| pounds, but sometimes reaches 

 double that quantity. 



Description — Cloves are about -^ of an inch in length, and consist 

 of a long cylindrical calyx dividing above into 4 pointed spreading sepals 

 which surround 4 petals, closely imbricated as a globular bud about j^ 

 of an inch in diameter. 



The petals which are of lighter colour than the rest of the drug and 

 somewhat translucent from numerous oil-cells, spring from the base of 

 a 4-sided epigynous disc, the angles of which are directed towards the 

 lobes of the calyx. The stamens which are very numerous, are inserted 

 at the base of the petals and are arched over the style. The latter 

 which is short and subulate, rises from a depression in the centre of the 

 disc. Immediately below it and united with the upper portion of the 

 calyx is the ovary, which is 2-celled and contains many ovules. The 

 lower end of the calyx (hypantkuivi) has a compressed form ; it is solid 



* Tessier, Sur V importation du Girqflier — Observationa sur la physitjue, Paris, 

 des Mohi'/iies aux Isles de France, de Bour- Juillet, 1779. 



boH et de Hechdks, el de ces ides a Cayenne. - Dictionary of the Indian Islands, 1856, 



article Hove. 



