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 Annates du Jar din Buitenzorg, 
ser. ii. vol. 1 (1899), and the Mededeeling uit Sdands 
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 
