Production and Commerce-Of late years the principal locality for the production of cloves has been the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba on the east coast of Africa, which until very recently were capable of producing a maximum crop of 10 millions of pounds in a single season. On the 15th April, 1872, Zanzibar was visited by a hurricane of extraordinary violence, by which about five-sixths of the clove-trees in the island were destroyed; and although the plantations are being renewed, many years must elapse before the crop can resume its former importance. Pemba which is distant from Zanzibar 25 miles, and produced about half as much of the spice as that island, did not appreciably suffer from the

storm.

The crop on these islands fluctuates, a good year alternating with a bad one. This is partly shown in the imports of Bombay, the great mart of Zanzibar produce, which have been as follows:

1869-70 45,642 cwt.

1870-71 21,968 cwt.

1871-72 43,891 cwt.

1872-73 25,185 cwt.

The quantity of cloves shipped from Bombay to the United Kingdom is comparatively small, being in 1871-72, 3279 cwt.; in 1872-73, 3271 cwt.

Cloves are also largely shipped direct from Zanzibar to the United States and Hamburg. A small amount is taken in native vessels to the Red Sea ports; these are packed in raw hides. Those for the European and American markets are shipped in mat bags made of split cocoa-nut leaf.

The clove trade of the Moluccas has been for many years in the hands of the Dutch Government, which by its restrictive policy, assumed practically the position of growers, disposing of their produce through the Netherlands Trading Company at auctions held in Holland twice a year. This system which was abolished in 1872, has proved disastrous to the trade it was designed to protect, and to such a degree that the produce of cloves in the Moluccas is but a tenth of what it was in the early days of their intercourse with Europe. The crop of the four islands, Amboyna, Haruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut, the only Moluccas in which the tree is cultivated, was reckoned in 1854 as 510,912 tb.

The export of cloves from Java in 1871, was 1397 peculs1 (186,266 lb.). The French island of Réunion which thirty or forty years ago used to produce as much as 800,000 kilogrammes (1,764,571 m.), now yields almost none, partly by reason of change of climate and partly from political causes.

Uses-As a remedy, cloves are unimportant, though in the form of infusion or distilled water, they are useful in combination with other medicines. The essential oil which sometimes relieves toothache, is a frequent ingredient of pill-masses. The chief consumption of cloves is as a culinary spice.

Substitutes-1. Clove Stalks-Festuca vel Stipites Caryophylli, in French Griffes de Girofle, in German Nelkensticle, were an article of import into Europe during the middle ages, when they were chiefly known by their low Latin name of fusti. Thus under the statutes of Pisa,2 A.D. 1305, duty was levied not only on cloves (garofali), but also 1 Consular Reports, Aug. 1873. 952.

2 Bonaini, Statuti inediti della città di Pisa dal xii. al xiv. secolo, iii. (1857) 106.

on Folia et fusti garofalorum. Pegolotti1 a little later, names both as being articles of trade at Constantinople. Clove Leaves are enumerated2 as an import into Palestine in the 12th century; they are also mentioned in a list of the drugs sold at Frankfort 3 about the year 1450: we are not aware that they are used in modern times.

As to Clove Stalks, they are still a considerable object of trade, especially from Zanzibar, where they are called by the natives Vikunia. They taste tolerably aromatic, and yield 4 to 5 per cent. of volatile oil; they are used for adulterating the Ground Cloves, sold by grocers. Such an admixture may be detected by the microscope, especially if the powder after treatment with potash, be examined in glycerin. If clove stalks have been ground, thick-walled or stone-cells will be found in the powder; such cells do not occur in cloves. Powdered allspice is also an adulterant of powdered cloves; it also contains stonecells, but in addition numerous starch-granules which are entirely wanting in cloves.

2. Mother Cloves, Anthophylli,—are the fruits of the clove-tree, and are ovate-oblong berries about an inch in length and much less rich in essential oil than cloves. Though occasionally seen in the London drug sales in some quantity, they are not an article of regular import.* As they contain very large starch-granules, their presence as an adulteration of ground cloves would be revealed by the microscope.

3. Royal Cloves-Under this name or Caryophyllum regium, a curious monstrosity of the clove was formerly held in the highest reputation, on account of its rarity and the strange stories told respecting it.5 Specimens in our possession show it to be a very small clove, distinguished by an abnormal number of sepals and large bracts at the base of the calyx-tube, the corolla and internal organs being imperfectly developed.

FRUCTUS PIMENTÆ.

Semen Amomi; Pimento, Allspice, Jamaica Pepper; F. Poivre de la Jamaïque, Piment des Anglais, Toute-épice; G. Nelkenpfeffer, Nelkenköpfe, Neugewürz.

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Botanical Origin-Pimenta officinalis Lindley (Myrtus Pimenta L, Eugenia Pimenta DC.), a beautiful evergreen tree, growing to about 30 feet in height, with a trunk 2 feet in circumference, common throughout the West India Islands. In Jamaica, it prefers limestone hills near the sea, and is especially plentiful on the north side of the island.

History-The high value placed on the spices of India, sufficiently explains the interest with which aromatic and pungent plants were regarded by the early explorers of the New World; while the eager desire to obtain these lucrative commodities is shown by the names

1 See p. 208, note 1.

2 Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Lois, ii. (1843) 173.

3 Flückiger, Die Frankfurter Liste, Halle,

1873. 11. 38.

We find in the fortnightly price current of a London drug-broker under date Nov. 27, 1873, the announcement of the sale of 1,050 bags of Mother Cloves at 2d. to 3d.

per fb., besides 4,200 packages of Clove Stalks at 3d. to 4d. per lb.

5 Rumphius, Herb. Amb. ii. 11. tab. 2.See also Hasskarl, Neuer Schlüssel zu Rumph's Herb. Amb., Halle, 1866; Berg, Linnæa, 1854. 137; Valmont de Bomare, Dict. d'Hist. Nat. iii. (1775) 70.

6 Collectanca Botanica, 1821, sub. tab. 19.

Pepper, Cinnamon, Balsam, Melegueta, Amomum, bestowed on productions totally distinct from those originally so designated.

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Among the spices thus brought to the notice of Europe, were the little dry berries of certain trees of the myrtle tribe, which had some resemblance in shape and flavour to peppercorns, and hence were named Pimienta,1 corrupted to Pimenta or Pimento. It was doubtless a drug of this kind, if not our veritable allspice, that was given to Clusius in 1601 by Garret, a druggist of London, and described and figured by the former in his Liber Exoticorum.2 A few years later it began to be imported into England, being as Parkinson says "obtruded for Amomum" (Round Cardamom), so that "some more audacious than wise put it in their compositions instead of the right." Sloane states (1691) that it was commonly sold by druggists for Carpobalsamum. Ray (1693) distinguished the spice as a production of Jamaica under the name of Sweet-scented Jamaica Pepper or All-spice, and states it to be abundantly imported into England, and in frequent use as a condiment, though not employed in medicine. The spice had a place in the London Pharmacopoeia as early as 1721.

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The consumption of pimento has been enormous. In the year 1804-5, the quantity shipped from the British West Indies was 2,257,000 Hb., producing in import duty, a net revenue of £38,063.5

Production and Commerce-The spice found in commerce is furnished wholly by the island of Jamaica. A plantation, there called a Pimento walk, is a piece of natural woodland stocked with the trees, which require but little attention. The flowers appear in June, July, and August, and are quickly succeeded by the berries, which are gathered when of full size but still unripe. This is performed by breaking off the small twigs bearing the bunches. These are then spread out, and exposed to the sun and air for some days, after which the stalks are removed, and the berries are fit for being packed.

By an official document it appears that in the year 1871, the amount of land in Jamaica cropped with pimento was 7,178 acres. In that year the island exported of the spice 6,857,838 lb., value £28,574. Of this quantity Great Britain took 4,287,551 lb., and the United States 2,266,950 Hb.

Description-Allspice is a small, dry, globular berry, rather variable in size, measuring to less than of an inch in diameter. It is crowned by a short style, seated in a depression, and surrounded by 4 short thick sepals; generally however the latter have been rubbed off, a scar-like raised ring marking their former position. The berry has a woody shell or pericarp, easily cut, of a dark ferruginous brown, and rugose by reason of minute tubercles filled with essential oil. It is twocelled, each cell containing a single, reniform, exalbuminous seed having a large spirally curved embryo. The seed is aromatic, but less so than the pericarp.

Allspice has an agreeable, pungent, spicy flavour, much resembling

that of cloves.

1 Pimienta, the Spanish for pepper is derived from pigmentum, a general name in mediæval Latin for spicery.

2 Lib. i. c. 17.

3 Theatrum Botanicum (1640) 1567.

4 Description of the Pimienta or Jamaica Pepper-tree.-Phil. Trans. xvii. No. 192.

Parliamentary Return, March 1805, quoted in Young's West-India Common-place Book, 1807. 79.

• Blue Book for Jamaica, printed 1872.

Microscopic Structure-The outer layer of the pericarp immediately beneath the epidermis, contains numerous large cells filled with essential oil. The parenchyme further exhibits thick-walled cells loaded with resin, and smaller cells enclosing crystals of oxalate of calcium. The whole tissue is traversed by small fibro-vascular bundles. The seeds are also provided with a small number of oil-cells, and contain starch granules.

Chemical Composition-The composition of pimento resembles in many points that of cloves. The berries yield to the extent of 3 to 4 per cent.,1 a volatile oil, sp. gr. 1·037 (Gladstone), having the characteristic taste and odour of the spice, and known in the shops as Oleum Pimento. We have found it to deviate the ray of polarized light 2° to the left, when examined in a column of 50 mm. The rotatory power depends upon the presence of a hydrocarbon, the eugenic acid being optically inert.

Oeser (1864), whose experiments have been confirmed by Gladstone (1872), has shown that oil of pimento has substantially the same composition as oil of cloves. When it is heated in a retort, the first portion that distills over is a hydrocarbon lighter than water, the second is eugenic acid, wholly soluble in alkalis and giving crystalline salts (p. 253). Salicylic acid has not been found. Pimento is rich in tannin, striking with a persalt of iron an inky black. Its decoction is coloured deep blue by iodine, showing the presence of starch. Dragendorff (1871) pointed out the existence in allspice of an extremely small quantity of an alkaloid.

Uses-Employed as an aromatic lkie cloves; a distilled water (Aqua Pimenta) is frequently prescribed. The chief use of pimento is as a culinary spice.

Substitutes-According to Berg 2 the Mexican spice called Pimienta de Tabasco (? Piment Tabago, Guibourt) which is somewhat larger and less aromatic than Jamaica allspice, is derived from a variety of Pimenta officinalis. Analogous products are afforded by Pimenta acris Wight and P. Pimento Griseb.

GRANATEÆ.

CORTEX GRANATI FRUCTUS.

Cortex Granati; Pomegranate Peel; F. Ecorce de Grenades;
G. Granatschalen.

Botanical Origin-Punica Granatum L., a shrub or low tree, with small deciduous foliage and handsome scarlet flowers. It appears to be indigenous to North-western India, and the countries south and south

west of the Caspian to the Persian Gulf and Palestine. But it has long been cultivated, and is now found throughout the warm parts of Europe and in the subtropical regions of both hemispheres.

History The pomegranate has been highly prized by mankind from the remotest antiquity, as is shown by the references to it in the Mosaic writings; and by the numerous representations of the fruit in the sculptures of Persepolis and Assyria,2 and on the ancient monuments of Egypt. It was probably introduced into the south of Italy by Greek colonists, and is named as a common fruit-tree by Porcius Cato in the 3rd century B.C. The peel of the fruit was recognized as medicinal by the ancients, and among the Romans was in common use for tanning leather.

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Description-The fruit of the pomegranate tree is a spherical, somewhat flattened and obscurely six-sided berry, of the size of a common orange and often much larger, crowned by the thick, tubular, 5- to 9-toothed calyx. It has a smooth, hard, coriaceous skin, which when the fruit is ripe, is of a brownish yellow tint, often finely shaded with red. Membranous dissepiments about 6 in number meeting in the axis of the fruit, divide the upper and larger portion into equal cells. Below these, a confused conical diaphragm separates the lower and smaller half, which in its turn is divided into 4 or 5 irregular cells. Each cell is filled with a large number of grains, crowded on thick spongy placenta, which in the upper cells are parietal but in the lower appear to be central. The grains, which are about an inch in length, are oblong or obconical and manysided, and consist of a thin transparent vesicle containing an acid, saccharine, red, juicy pulp, surrounding an elongated angular seed.

The only part of the fruit used medicinally is the peel, Cortex Granati of the druggists, which in the fresh state is leathery. When dry, as imported, it is in irregular, more or less concave fragments, some of which have the toothed, tubular calyx still enclosing the stamens and style. It is to of an inch thick, easily breaking with a short corky fracture; externally it is rather rough, of a yellowish brown or reddish colour. Internally it is more or less brown or yellow, and honey-combed with depressions left by the seeds. It has hardly any odour, but has a strongly astringent taste.

Microscopic Structure-The middle layer of the peel consists of large thin-walled and elongated, sometimes even branched cells, among which occur thick-walled cells and fibro-vascular bundles. Both the outer and the inner surface are made up of smaller, nearly cubic and densely packed cells. Small starch granules occur sparingly throughout the tissue, as well as crystals of oxalate of calcium.

Chemical Composition-The chief constituent is tannin, which in an aqueous infusion of the dried peel, produces with perchloride of iron an abundant dark blue precipitate. The peel also contains sugar and a little gum. Dried at 100° C. and incinerated, it yielded us 5.9 per cent. of ash.

1 Exodus xxviii. 33, 34, Numbers xx. 5, Deut. viii. 8.

2 Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, ed. 2, ii. (1849) 296.

3 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, ii. (1837)

142.

4 Nisard's edition, Paris, 1864, capp. 7.

127. 133.