A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton.

  • John Barton
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of commerce. White 'pepper consists of the same berry, stripped of its outer coat. Nutmegs and doves were long supposed to be exclusively produced in the Malaccas, or Spice Islands, a cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean, formerly in possession of the Dutch, who monopolized the trade in these spices, and by keeping the market constantly understocked, obtained an extraordinary price for them from the other nations of Europe. For the purpose of ren- dering their monopoly more complete, they even paid an annual tribute to the sovereigns of some of the smaller islands, as a recompense for allowing ail the clove-trees in their dominions to be destroyed. It is now, however, ascertained that this tree grows in New Guinea, and other parts of the East Indian islands. Cloves are the dowers, or rather the buds of a tree*, gathered and dried before the petals open. Nutmegs are the production of a tree -j* said to resemble a Pear-tree, bearing a fruit of the size of a nectarine, of which the outer part consists of a fleshy covering enveloping the nutmeg in the same manner as the green coat of a walnut. Between the nutmeg and this fleshy covering grows the substance called mace. <Cj Although, as I have mentioned, our Euro- * Caryophyllus aromaticus. f Myristica officinalis.