------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: NUTMEG. (Myristica) 1 Nutmeg with Mace and part inner shell 2 Brown Pedang 3 Long Macassar with Mace 4 Singapore or Batavia 5 Flowering twig with leaf 6 Burr just opening showing the Mace] CHAPTER XII NUTMEGS Though all your parts we rashly grate To particles most fine, You yet return for cruel strokes, Tears filled with perfume fine. NUTMEGS are the fruit of _Myristica fragrans_ (natural order _Myristicaceoe_) _maschata officinalis_. Myristica is founded upon the Greek word myrrh, myristikas, sweet smelling, and belongs to the custard family. Italian, _Nace moscada_; French, _Muscades et macis_ or _Naix muscade_; Portuguese, _Noiz mascada_; German, _Muskatnusse_ and _Muskatbluther_. The nutmeg was known by the Persians (as jouzbewa) and by the Arabians (jowzalteib) in the eighth century. There are about forty different species. Although the name myristikas (sweet smelling) was given to the genus on account of the odor of its fruit, there is a material difference in the several species, the commercial value of the fruit depending upon the degree in which the essential oil producing this perfume is present. The true nutmeg is the kernel, mostly consisting of the albumen of the fruit or the seed of a diœcious evergreen tree, which in some countries, as in New Guinea, grows from fifty to sixty feet high. It is a native of the Molucca Islands. The nutmeg gardens of the world are the Banda Islands belonging to the East Indies, but the nutmeg is also found in the West Indies on the Island of Jamaica, which is quite noted for its nutmeg plantations. Nutmegs are also found in Bengal, Singapore, Penang, and French Guinea and Brazil, in the west peninsula of New Guinea, Damma, Amboina, Ceram, Boro, Boero or Bouro, Gilolo, Sumatra, and they have been successfully introduced in Ternate, Menando, in the Celebes group, and in Java and Bourbon or Reunion, but not in the Philippines. They do not do well except between 12 degrees north and 5 degrees south of the equator. They are found growing wild in the Banda Islands, to which they are indigenous. Three of these islands are noted for their nutmeg gardens, viz.: Great Banda or Lantor (Lantor Banda), Pulo Nera, and Goenong Api. The three islands together contain thirty-four parks, of which Great Banda has twenty-five, Goenong Api six, and Pulo Nera three.