CLOVES.

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Biron. A Lemon.
Longaville. Stuck with Cloves.
Love's Labour's Lost, act v, sc. 2 (633).[56:1]

As a mention of a vegetable product, I could not omit this passage, but the reference is only to the imported spice and not to the tree from which then, as now, the Clove was gathered. The Clove of commerce is the unexpanded flower of the Caryophyllus aromaticus, and the history of its discovery and cultivation by the Dutch in Amboyna, with the vain attempts they made to keep the monopoly of the profitable spice, is perhaps the saddest chapter in all the history of commerce. See a full account with description and plate of the plant in "Bot. Mag.," vol. 54, No. 2749.


FOOTNOTES:

[56:1] "But then 'tis as full of drollery as ever it can hold; 'tis like an orange stuck with Cloves as for conceipt."—The Rehearsal, 1671, act iii, sc. 1.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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