Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans), an evergreen tree native to the East Indies, and now in cultivation in the East and West Indies and Brazil. The fruit is pear-shaped and about two inches across. The seed has a thin, hard shell enclosing the nutmeg, which is mottled in appearance. The largest and roundest nutmegs are the best, and though generally about one hundred and ten to the pound, they may be as few as sixty-eight. Nutmegs contain about twenty-five per cent of nutmeg butter or oil of mace, a vegetable fat now considerably employed in soap-making.
Olive (Olea europæa), a very valuable small tree, seldom more than thirty feet high, of slow growth, but sometimes exceeding twenty feet in girth and seven centuries in age. The wild olive has squarish, spinous branches; opposite evergreen, leathery, shortly-stalked leaves, hoary on their under surface, and small white flowers. The cultivated olive (var. sativa) differs in its rounder branches which have no spines, longer leaves and larger fruit. For pickling, the fruits are gathered unripe, soaked in an alkaline lye, and then bottled in brine. For oil, the ripe fruit, which usually yields sixty to seventy per cent, is squeezed, yielding virgin oil, and the marc or cake is wetted and re-pressed, and the kernels crushed and boiled to yield a second and third quality. The tree grows best on light or calcareous soils near the sea, and the value attached to its oil as an article of food in countries where butter can with difficulty be preserved made the tree from early times the symbol of peace and good-will. It is extensively cultivated in Mediterranean Europe, Syria, South Africa, Australia and California.
Orange (Citrus Aurantium), small evergreen trees, probably a native of southern China and Burma, but grows wild and spinous in Indian jungles. The scattered glossy leaves are remarkable for their double articulation, having one joint at each end of the winged leaf-stalk. The fragrant white or pinkish flowers have five sepals, five petals, and branched stamens. The fruit has a leathery rind, containing large spindle-shaped cells filled with watery juice. As the fruit takes some months to ripen, it occurs on the tree at the same time as the next year’s blossoms. There are two chief varieties or sub-species, the sweet or China orange, and the bitter, bigarade or Seville orange, but the Mandarin and Tangerine oranges are sometimes ranked as a distinct species. The principal orange-growing sections [142] of the United States are Florida, Louisiana and California.
The Mandarin Orange or Clove Orange has fruit much broader than long, with a rind very loosely attached to the flesh, and small leaves; the Tangerine Orange is apparently derived from the mandarin. It is grown in Florida. The Jaffa Orange has now a great reputation. The Majorca Orange is seedless. The Kum-quat from China and Japan, is little bigger than a gooseberry, and grows well in Australia. The Navel Orange, nearly seedless, is a favorite variety with California growers.
Orange trees are often extremely fruitful, so that a tree twenty feet high and occupying a space of little more than twelve feet in diameter sometimes yields from three thousand to four thousand oranges in a year. One tree in Florida has often borne ten thousand oranges in a single season. The orange tree attains an age of at least one hundred to one hundred and fifty years. Young trees are less productive than old ones, and the fruit is also less juicy, has a thicker rind, and more numerous seeds.
Palms were called by Linnæus “the princess of the vegetable kingdom,” and comprising over one thousand species, chiefly natives of the tropics. They have mostly cylindric, unbranched stems, bearing a tuft of large, often gigantic, leathery leaves at the top, the leaves being torn into segments. The leaves are sometimes spattered, and in most cases have a fibrous sheathing base to the leaf-stalk. The terminal leaf-bud is the “cabbage” which, in some species, is eaten. The fruit varies very much, with a hard seed, as in the date; drupaceous, as in the cocoa-nut; or covered with woody reflexed scales, as in the sago palm. The use of palms are innumerable. Beams, veneers, canes, thatch, fibre for cordage and matting, fans, hats, bowls, spoons, sago, sugar, wine, spirits, food, oil and wax are only some among the number. See also [Date], [Betel-nut], [Cocoa-nut].
Peach (Amygdalus persica), probably a native of China. The nectarine is merely a smooth-fruited variety, differing, however, in flavor. The stone in both is coarsely furrowed. The flowers which appear before the leaves, are of a delicate pink. The fruit in the peach has a separable wooly skin. Though deliciously flavored and refreshing, since it contains eighty-five per cent of water and eight per cent of pectose and gum, it does not contain much nutriment. Peaches grow extensively in Europe and Asia and second only to the apple as an orchard fruit in the United States. California, Michigan, Georgia and Texas lead in production.
Pear (Pyrus communis), is a tree belonging to the same genus as the apple. It grows from thirty to seventy feet high, with a pyramidal outline; branches spinous in the wild state; leaves scattered and somewhat leathery; flowers in clusters; fruit with a fleshily-enlarged stalk, core near the apex and parchment-like, and black seeds. Gritty particles, due to groups of wood-cells, occur in the flesh. They are widely cultivated in temperate regions, but chiefly in France and the United States. Ranks fourth among American orchard fruits, being preceded by the apple, peach and plum. Chiefly grown in California, New York and Michigan.
Pecan (C. illinoensis), is a large, slender tree reaching a maximum height of one hundred and seventy feet and a diameter of six feet. It grows in moist soil, especially along streams, from Indiana to Iowa and Missouri, south to Kentucky and Texas. It is cultivated in the Southern States for its sweet, edible nut, which forms an important article of commerce.
Persimmon, the Virginian date-plum (Dios pyros virginiana), a moderately-sized tree of the United States, belonging to the ebony tribe, the round orange fruit of which, though austere, becomes edible when affected by frost. They are fermented into a beer and distilled for spirit in the Southern States. The bark has medicinal properties.