The trees produce male and female flowers, usually on different plants, but sometimes on the same one, yellow in color and aromatic. From the females are developed the fruit which is a drupe about two inches long with a thick fleshy husk which splits upon ripening. The seed inside is the nutmeg, but from its base is an outgrowth which covers the nut with a “splendid crimson network.” This covering or network is removed by hand and forms the mace of commerce. CLOVES In the family _Myrtaceæ_, which contains hundreds of plants from all over the world, mostly all shrubs and trees of tropical regions, however, there is a large genus, _Eugenia_. From the unopened flower buds of _Eugenia caryophyllata_, a small tree native only on a few islands in the Moluccas, the widely used spice known as cloves is derived. It appears to have been known to the Chinese at least two hundred years before Christ, and was regularly imported into Europe from the eighth century by caravans. Not until the Dutch began to import it by ship did it become cheap enough to have general use, but in 1609 a Dutch vessel reached England with over a hundred thousand pounds on board. While the tree is of very local distribution, it has been introduced on a considerable scale into Penang, Zanzibar, and even to the West Indies. Trees are set out thirty feet apart each way, and in from four to eight years, depending on the locality, they begin to flower. After the full bearing stage is reached, a tree will produce from five to seven pounds of dried cloves, an average crop being about 375 pounds to an acre. The flowers are produced in small clusters not over an inch and a half long, so that hand picking is the only method of collection. As the buds become blood red they are usually in a fit state for picking, after which they are either sun dried or, more rarely, by artificial heat. Nothing further is done to them before shipment. Zanzibar and Pemba now produce more cloves than nearly all the rest of the world put together. Oil of cloves, largely used in perfumery, is pressed out of the dried cloves. [Illustration: FIG. 105.--CLOVE PLANT A native of only a few islands in the Moluccas. Cloves consist of the unopened flower buds of _Eugenia caryophyllata_.] CINNAMON