| Water, | 6.08 |
| Ash, | 3.27 |
| Volatile Oil, | 2.84 |
| Fixed Oil or Fat, | 34.37 |
| Starch, etc., | 36.98 |
| Crude Fiber, | 11.30 |
| Albuminoids, | 5.16 |
| Nitrogen, | .83 |
CHAPTER XIII
MACE
With your colors shining bright,
You stopped the pigeons in their flight;
From Dutchmen’s fields they planted seed,
Which brought forth wealth in time of need.
ALTHOUGH nutmegs and mace are the fruit of the same tree, and although they have similar properties, they are yet so different in growth and flavor as to justify giving to them separate chapters.
The fleshy scarlet mantle or arillus which envelopes the nutmeg (illustration under [nutmeg]), or the coat between the outside pericarp and the seed of the nutmeg, is called mace (Latin, Macis; French, Macis; German, Maker). It is not a continuous coat, but a network which varies in amount in different localities, as well as on the several species of nuts, being from 0.25 per cent. in the Bandas to 10 per cent. in Jamaica. It would, therefore, require from ten to 400 pounds of nutmegs to produce one pound of mace.
Planchon says of this laciniate envelope that it is nothing more than an expansion of the exostome and, therefore, an arillode or false aril.