genus _Medicago_--_M. Echinus_, so called from the curled
spiny pod; it has small heads of yellow clover-like flowers, and is a
native of the south of France.

CLOVES, the dried, unexpanded flower-buds of _Eugenia caryophyllata_, a
tree belonging to the natural order Myrtaceae. They are so named from
the French word _clou_, on account of their resemblance to a nail. The
clove tree is a beautiful evergreen which grows to a height of from 30
to 40 ft., having large oval leaves and crimson flowers in numerous
groups of terminal clusters. The flower-buds are at first of a pale
colour and gradually become green, after which they develop into a
bright red, when they are ready for collecting. Cloves are rather more
than half an inch in length, and consist of a long cylindrical calyx,
terminating in four spreading sepals, and four unopened petals which
form a small ball in the centre. The tree is a native of the small group
of islands in the Indian Archipelago called the Moluccas, or Spice
Islands; but it was long cultivated by the Dutch in Amboyna and two or
three small neighbouring islands. Cloves were one of the principal
Oriental spices that early excited the cupidity of Western commercial
communities, having been the basis of a rich and lucrative trade from an
early part of the Christian era. The Portuguese, by doubling the Cape of
Good Hope, obtained possession of the principal portion of the clove
trade, which they continued to hold for nearly a century, when, in 1605,
they were expelled from the Moluccas by the Dutch. That power exerted
great and inhuman efforts to obtain a complete monopoly of the trade,
attempting to extirpate all the clove trees growing in their native
islands, and to concentrate the whole production in the Amboyna Islands.
With great difficulty the French succeeded in introducing the clove tree
into Mauritius in the year 1770; subsequently the cultivation was
introduced into Guiana, Brazil, most of the West Indian Islands and
Zanzibar. The chief commercial sources of supply are now Zanzibar and
its neighbouring island Pemba on the East African coast, and Amboyna.
Cloves are also grown in Java, Sumatra, Reunion, Guiana and the West
India Islands.

Cloves as they come into the market have a deep brown colour, a
powerfully fragrant odour, and a taste too hot and acrid to be pleasant.
When pressed with the nail they exude a volatile oil with which they are
charged to the unusual proportion of ab