forest of nutmeg trees and the larger kenari shade trees that protect them from the
harsh tropical sun. These remote islands are the only place in the world where
commercial nutmegs originally grew and it is a mystery how the nutmeg tree came to
these islands in the middle of the Banda Sea. Yet there are native nutmegs growing in
North Queensland in Australia, so how are these two connected and which nutmegs
came first? Alfred Russel Wallace describes the nutmeg trees on the Banda Islands:
Few cultivated plants are more beautiful than the nutmeg trees. They are handsomely shaped
and glossy leaved, growing to a height of 8 metres bearing small yellowish flowers. The
fruit is the size and colour of a peach, but rather oval. It is of a tough fleshy consistence but
when ripe splits open and shows the dark nut within, covered with crimson mace, and is
then a most beautiful object. Within the hard shell of the nut is the seed, which is the nutmeg
of commerce. The nuts are eaten by the large pigeons of Banda, which digest the mace but
cast up the nut, with its seed uninjured.When the nutmeg is ripe, it splits open to reveal the mace which is a crimson net
wrapped around the shiny dark brown seed which contains the actual nut. Both the
mace and the nutmeg are dried for a day in the sun and are then ready for export.
Wallace was excited to observe the white and lilac-blue flashes of the huge imperial
pigeons, also known as nutmeg pigeons, which feed exclusively on the nutmeg fruit
and can open their beak wide enough to swallow and digest the complete fruit, which
is itself the size of a small peach. They pass the seed to grow where it falls and it is
probably these pigeons that first brought the nutmegs from these remote islands to
Northern Australia, or is it the other way around?
Government House and VOC headquarters in Banda Neira(^148) Where Australia Collides with Asia
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