316 ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



315. The Nutmeg-tree, Myristica moschata (family 

 Myristicacece), is a native of the Indian Archipelago, now 

 cultivated in many tropical lands. The tree is twenty to 

 thirty feet high, and has the aspect of a Pear-tree. The 

 bark is smooth and gray, and within has a yellowish juice. 

 The slightly aromatic leaves are alternate and petiolate, 

 oblong, with an acute apex, entire, dark-green, and some- 

 what shining. The staminate flowers are very fragrant, in 

 clusters of three to five, much like those of the Lily of the 

 VaUey, and have about eleven stamens ; the pistillate flowers 

 are much like the others, but usually solitary, and have a 

 single pistil, with a two-lobed stigma. The seed has a hard, 

 dark-brown shell, about a line in thickness, enclosing the 

 kernel, which is the Nutmeg of commerce. Surrounding 

 the seed is a lacerate, red aril, which forms the spice Mace. 

 The kernel, or endosperm, is fiirrowed, and into these 

 depressions the delicate inner testa sinks, giving in section 

 a marbled appearance. The endosperm is very hard, 

 heavier than water, and consists of parenchymous cells, 

 filled with fat, starch, and aleurone grains. It contains 

 myristica-butter, and six per cent, of volatile-oil. The aril 

 is dried after being removed from the seed, and the red color 

 is exchanged for a dull orange-yellow ; it becomes horn-like, 

 and contains four to nine per cent, of oil. The plants, if 

 raised from seed, bear when eight years old, and continue 

 to bear until seventy or eighty years old. The fruit is col- 

 lected (1) in March, or early in April, when both the nuts 

 and mace are in greatest perfection ; (2) in July and 

 August, when the fruit is most abundant; (3) and col- 

 lected again in November, when the fruit is smaller, but 

 the mace is thicker. The nuts are dried over the fire till 

 the seeds rattle in the shell; the brittle shells are then 



