the Nutmeg-tree, in Botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class dioecia, and order Syngenesia, and of the natural order, Lauri. The description of this genus having been omitted in its proper place under Botany, we shall here introduce a short account of it.—The male calyx is monophyllous, strong, and parted into three laciniae of an oval shape, and ending in a point; it has no corolla. In the middle of the receptacle rises a column of the height of the calyx, to the upper part of which the antherae are attached. They vary in number from three to twelve or thirteen.—The female calyx and corolla as in the male, on a distinct tree. The germen of an oval shape; the style short, with a bifid stigma, the laciniae of which are oval and spreading.—The fruit is of that form called drupa. It is fleshy, roundish, sometimes unilocular, sometimes bivalved, and bursts when ripe at the side. The seed is enveloped with a fleshy and fatty membranous substance which divides into filaments (this, in one of the species, is the mace of the shops). The seed or nutmeg is round or oval shaped, unilocular, and contains a small kernel, variegated on the surface by the fibres running in the form of a screw.
Species.—There are five species of this genus according to some authors; but several of these being only varieties, may be reduced into three, viz.
1. Myristica fatua, or wild nutmeg: this grows in Tobago, and rises to the height of an apple-tree; has oblong, lanceolate, downy leaves, and hairy fruit;—the nutmeg of which is aromatic, but when given inwardly is narcotic, and occasions drunkenness, delirium, and madness, for a time.
2. The myristica sebifera, (Viburna Sebifera Aublet, page 904, tab. 345.) a tree frequent in Guiana, rising to 40 or even to 60 feet high; on wounding the trunk of which, a thick, acrid, red juice runs out. Aublet says nothing of the nutmegs being aromatic; he only observes, that a yellow fat is obtained from them, which Myristica serves many economical and medical purposes, and that the natives make candles of it.
3. The myristica moschata, or nutmeg, rises to the height of 30 feet, producing numerous branches; the bark of the trunk is of a reddish brown, but that of the young branches is of a bright green colour; the leaves are nearly elliptical, pointed, undulated, obliquely nerved, on the upper side of a bright green, on the under whitish, and stand alternately upon footstalks: the flowers are small, and hang upon slender peduncles, proceeding from the axils of the leaves; they are both male and female upon separate trees.
M. Schwartz, who has carefully examined this as well as the two first species, preserved in spirits, places them among the monadelphia.
The nutmeg has been supposed to be the conacum of Theophrastus, but there seems little foundation for this opinion; nor can it with more probability be thought to be the chrysobalanos of Galen. Our first knowledge of it was evidently derived from the Arabsians; by Avicenna it was called jauafban, or jauaf-band, which signifies nut of Banda. Rumphius both figured and described this tree; but the figure given by him is so imperfect, and the description so confused, that Linnaeus, who gave it the generic name myristica, was unable to assign its proper characters. M. Lamarck informs us, that he received several branches of the myristica, both in flower and fruit, from the Isle of France, where a nutmeg-tree, which was introduced by Monsieur Poivre in 1770, is now very large, and continually producing flowers and fruit. From these branches, which were sent from Mons. Cere, director of the king's garden in that island, Lamarck has been enabled to describe and figure this and other species of the myristica. See Plate CXXIV. Botany.
Fig. a. A sprig with fructification. The drupa of the natural size, and bursting open. Fig. b. The full-grown fruit cut lengthwise. Fig. c. Another section of the same. Fig. d. The nutmeg enveloped with its covering, the mace. Fig. e. The fatty membrane or mace spread out. Fig. f. The nutmeg of its natural size. Fig. g. The same with its external tegument removed at one end. Fig. h. The same with its outer tegument entirely removed. Fig. i. A transverse section of the nutmeg.
The seeds or kernels called nutmegs are well known, as they have been long used both for culinary and medical purposes. Distilled with water, they yield a large quantity of essential oil, resembling in flavour the spice itself; after the distillation an infusible sebaceous matter is found swimming on the water; the decoction insipidated, gives an extract of an unctuous, very lightly bitterish taste, and with little or no astringency. Rectified spirit extracts the whole virtue of nutmegs by infusion, and elevates very little of it in distillation; hence the spirituous extract possesses the flavour of the spice in an eminent degree.
Nutmegs, when heated, yield to the press a considerable quantity of limpid yellow oil, which on cooling concretes into a sebaceous confection. In the shops we meet with three sorts of unctuous substances, called oil of mace, though really expressed from the nutmeg. The best is brought from the East Indies in stone jars; this is of a thick confection, of the colour of mace. Myristica, mace, and has an agreeable fragrant smell; the second sort, which is paler coloured, and much inferior in quality, comes from Holland in solid masses, generally flat, and of a square figure: the third, which is the worst of all, and usually called common oil of mace, is an artificial composition of sevum, palm oil, and the like, flavoured with a little genuine oil of nutmeg.
Method of gathering and preparing Nutmeg.—When the fruit is ripe the natives ascend the trees, and gather it by pulling the branches to them with long hooks. Some are employed in opening them immediately, and in taking off the green shell or first rind, which is laid together in a heap in the woods, where in time it putrefies. As soon as the putrefaction has taken place, there spring up a kind of mushrooms called boleti maf-chayyni, of a blackish colour, and much valued by the natives, who consider them as delicate eating. When the nuts are stripped of their first rind, they are carried home, and the mace is carefully taken off with a small knife. The mace, which is of a beautiful red, but afterwards assumes a darkish or reddish colour, is laid to dry in the sun for the space of a day, and is then removed to a place less exposed to its rays, where it remains for eight days, that it may soften a little. They afterwards moisten it with sea water, to prevent it from drying too much, or from losing its oil. They are careful, however, not to employ too much water, lest it should become putrid, and be devoured by the worms. It is last of all put into small bags, and squeezed very close.
The nuts which are still covered with their ligneous shell, are for three days exposed to the sun, and afterwards dried before a fire till they emit a sound when they are shaken; then they beat them with small sticks in order to remove their shell, which flies off in pieces. These nuts are distributed into three parcels, the first of which contains the largest and most beautiful, which are destined to be brought to Europe; the second contains such as are reserved for the use of the inhabitants; and the third contains the smallest, which are irregular or unripe. These are burnt; and part of the rest is employed for procuring oil by pressure. A pound of them commonly gives three ounces of oil, which has the consistence of tallow, and has entirely the taste of nutmeg. Both the nut and mace, when distilled, afford an essential, transparent, and volatile oil, of an excellent flavour.
The nutmegs which have been thus selected would soon corrupt if they were not watered, or rather pickled, with lime-water made from calcined shell fish, which they dilute with salt water till it attain the consistence of fluid pap. Into this mixture they plunge the nutmegs, contained in small baskets, two or three times, till they are completely covered over with the liquor. They are afterwards laid in a heap, where they heat, and lose their superfluous moisture by evaporation. When they have sweated sufficiently, they are then properly prepared, and fit for a sea voyage.
In the island of Banda, the fruit of the nutmeg tree is preserved entire in the following manner: When it is almost ripe, but previous to its opening, it is boiled in water and pierced with a needle. They next lay it in water to soak for ten days, till it has lost its four and sharp taste. They then boil it gently in a syrup of sugar, to which, if they wish it to be hard, a little lime is added. This operation is repeated for eight days, and each time the syrup is renewed. The fruit when thus preserved is put for the last time into a pretty thick syrup, and is kept in earthen pots closely shut.
These nuts are likewise pickled with brine or with vinegar; and when they intend to eat them, they first steep them in fresh water, and afterwards boil them in syrup of sugar, &c.
Uses.—Nutmegs preserved entire are preferred as desserts, and the inhabitants of India sometimes eat them when they drink tea. Some of them use nothing but the pulp; others likewise chew the mace; but they generally throw away the kernel, which is really the nutmeg. Many who perform sea voyages to the north chew this fruit every morning.
The medicinal qualities of nutmeg are supposed to be aromatic, anodyne, stomachic, and restringent; and with a view to the last-mentioned effects, it has been much used in diarrhoeas and dysenteries.
Remarks on the Trade of Nutmegs.—Nutmeg trees grow in several islands in the eastern ocean. The wood pigeon of the Moluccas is unintentionally a great planter of these trees, and disseminates them in places where a nation, powerful by its commerce, thinks it for its interest that they should be rooted out and destroyed. The Dutch, whose unwearied patience can surmount the greatest obstructions, formerly appropriated to themselves the crop of nutmeg, as well as that of cloves and cinnamon, growing in the islands of Ternate, Ceylon, &c., either by right of conquest or by paying subsidies to the islanders, who find these much more profitable than the former produce of their trees. It is nevertheless true, that they have prevailed upon or compelled the inhabitants of the Moluccas to cut down and root out all the clove trees, which they have preserved only in the islands of Amboyna and Ternate, which are in a great measure subject to them. We know for certain, that the Dutch pay 18,000 rixdollars yearly to the king of Ternate, by way of tribute or gift, in order to recompense him for the loss of his clove trees in the other Molucca islands; and that they are moreover bound by treaty to take at 3½d. a pound, all the cloves brought by the natives of Amboyna to their magazines.
The Dutch had formerly immense and very rich magazines of these precious aromatics, both in India and Europe. It is said, that they had actually by them the produce of 16 years, and never supplied their neighbours with the last, but always with the oldest crop: in 1760 they sold what was laid up in 1744; and when they had too great a quantity of cloves, nutmeg, &c., in their magazines, they threw them into the sea, or destroyed them by burning. On the 10th of June 1760, M. Bomare saw at Amsterdam, near the Admiralty, a fire, the fuel of which was valued at 8,000,000 of livres; and as much was to be burned on the day following. The feet of the spectators were bathed in the essential oil of these substances; but no person was allowed to gather any of it, much less to take any of the spices which were in the fire. Some years before, upon a similar occasion, and at the same place, a poor man man who had taken up some nutmegs which had rolled out of the fire, was, as M. Bomare was informed, seized and condemned to immediate execution.
But after all, although the spice trade is less exclusively limited to the Dutch of late years, it does not appear that the price of East Indian spices is in any degree reduced to the consumer.