ABSTRACT
The clove is a small, tropical, evergreen tree 8 to 12 m (25-40 ft.), occasionally 15 m (49 ft.) tall. Clove trees may attain an age of 70 years, but the average life of a plantation tree is not more than 20 years. Cloves are the §ower buds, picked by hand while still unopened, dried, and marketed either whole or ground. Individual cloves need to be harvested when the bud is at the right size, and this means repeated picking of the same plants. Experts can judge from the size and appearance of commercial cloves whether all the buds were picked at the right time. The buds are 13 to 19 mm (1/2-3/4 in.) long. The trees begin to yield 5 to 7 years after planting, and may annually produce up to 34 kg (75 lb.) of dried buds. Cloves are native in the Moluccas (part of Indonesia, also known as the Spice Islands or Clove Islands) and the southern Philippines. Clove trees are said to §ourish only near the sea. The spicy fragrance of cloves was admired by the ancient Egyptians, Chinese of the third century BC, and the classical Romans. From the eighth century on, cloves became one of the major spices in Europe. In 1524, the Portuguese took possession of the Spice Islands and established a monopoly to control the clove market. About 1600, the Dutch drove out the Portuguese and until the late eighteenth century willfully eliminated the tree from all of the islands except Amboina and Ternate. However, a Frenchman, Pierre Poivre (literally “Peter Pepper”), managed to get some plants out, and one of these is said to be the ancestor of almost all modern clove trees. Today cloves are produced in several tropical areas, including West Indies, Madagascar (Malagasy Republic), Mauritius, Sumatra (Indonesia), Moluccas (Indonesia), Penang (Malaysia), Guiana, and Brazil.
