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.
Mace is harvested at the same time as the nutmegs and sometimes it is
removed from the nutmeg by scraping with a knife, but removing it by
hand is considered the better way. This is done by commencing at the
base of the nut, for the reason that there the interlacing or lining
becomes more expanded and at the same time flattened. In this condition
it is placed on mats or trays to dry in the sunshine. The modern drier,
however, is now largely used and is preferable, even when the weather is
clear for a sufficient time to cure the mace, as sunshine seems to
absorb some of its substantial qualities. The modern drier also prevents
it from drying too rapidly. Mace, in drying, is first crimson, then
blood red, but in process of drying it loses this tinge, and after a few
months, when properly cured, it is of a yellowish or golden-brown color,
preferred by the dealers. It is then firmly packed in bags (called by
the Germans in the Straits Settlements, _sok kols_). The Banda mace is
usually packed in one-half piculs of sixty-five pounds and in barrels or
casks containing about 280 pounds each, the pressure being about equal
to the weight of the mace. When driers are not used and the weather is
wet, mace is dried by being smoked, care being taken not to blacken it.
Sometimes the base of the mace is cut off and it is dried in double
layers—a process which many think has a tendency to keep worms from
working into it, but this is not true, as it, instead, furnishes a place
in which they can hide.
True mace is the product of the true nutmeg, which is round and covered
with single and double blades of flat and somewhat irregular smooth
slits. These are slightly flexible or brittle membrane of a
golden-yellow color, and, in the odor and taste, analogous to the odor
and taste of the nutmeg. They are rich in fixed and essential oils and
in aroma. While each is a part of the same fruit, the nutmeg and mace
are entirely different in outward appearance and are separated for
commercial purposes, as well as for their separate uses.
The Penang mace is most esteemed because it is flaxy and spreads. Penang
exported 1,143 piculs, valued at $105,032, in 1904. The Dutch or
Batavian is more fleshy and cheaper. The Singapore is inferior to both
the Penang and the Dutch, while the wild or false mace from the long
nutmegs is dark red and has a coarse, strong flavor, which is very
different from that of the true mace.
[5]Myristica Malabarica, known under the name of Bombay mace, used to
adulterate the true powdered mace, is much larger and more cylindrical
than the arillus of the true nutmeg and has several flaps united at the
apex, forming a conical structure. The anatomical structure is also
different, as may be seen by the aid of a microscope. When moistened
with hydrochloric acid, the Bombay mace presents the marked peculiarity
of assuming a greenish color. Bombay mace may be detected by boiling the
suspected samples with alcohol and filtering through a white filter; if
the mace is pure the filter is stained a faint yellow, but if Bombay
mace is present the filter, especially the edge, is colored red. A
rather more delicate test is to add “Goulard’s”[6] extract to the
alcoholic filtrate; with pure mace only a white turbidity is occasioned,
but when Bombay mace is present a red turbidity is obtained. The
reaction given by tumeric is similar, but it may be distinguished from
that of Bombay mace in the following manner: A strip of filter paper is
saturated with the alcoholic solution, the excess of fluid removed, and
the strips drawn through a cold, saturated solution of boric acid. When
Bombay mace is present the paper remains unchanged, but in the presence
of tumeric it turns orange brown. If a drop of potassium-hydrate
solution is now placed on the strip of paper, it causes a blue ring if
tumeric be present, and a red ring if the adulterant is Bombay mace.
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Footnote 5:
Tamk Bedd, G. L., Sylv. t269; Rheede, Hort., M21, iv, t5.
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Footnote 6:
Pharmacographia Indica.
The myristica argentea produces a dirty-brown colored mace, and the
arillus generally consists of four broad stripes which are united above
and below. In selecting mace care should be taken to select the
orange-colored with a transparent-like appearance. When it has a
tendency to crumble to dust it is considered of poor quality.
Dull-looking parcels should be avoided, as such is never genuine mace,
but is obtained from concrete virtue or expressed oil of bruised or
broken nutmegs.
Although pure mace has a flavor quite similar to that of the nutmeg, it
has a peculiarity of its own which most people prefer. It is extensively
used for medicinal purposes.
Ground mace, which is powdered by stamps or by pounding, the same as
nutmegs or mustard, loses its flavor very rapidly and when distilled
yields a reddish, buttery oil, which can be obtained by process of
distillation. This oil is strong and volatile and contains an oxygenated
body, the properties of which have not been determined. This buttery
oil, mixed with other substances, is known as nutmeg balsam. (See
nutmegs.)
The uniform, small-celled, angular parenchyma of mace contains numerous
brown cells of large size and the inner parts contain thin, brown
vascular bundles. The cells of the epidermis on either side are
colorless, containing thick walls, longitudinally extended, and covered
with a peculiar cuticle of broad, flat, ribbon-like cells as a
continuous film which cannot be removed. The parenchyma also contains
many small granules to which a red color is imparted by means of a
solution of meracious nitrate and an orange hue by use of iodine. This
result shows that they consist of albuminous matter without starch.
The chemical characteristics are so marked and the structure is so
closely carried out that the adulteration of ground mace is very easily
detected.
All the details of structure in the ground powder of mace are readily
made out by chloral-hydrate preparation with the polarized light, as the
brown vascular bundles, the ribbon-like and epidermal cells are all
polarizing substances, while the large mass of granular parenchymous
cells are not. The ribbon-like cells are particularly interesting in the
varied forms they assume.
THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF MACE
The nature of the principal constituent of mace can be found from the
following experiments:
Seventeen grammes of finely pulverized mace were entirely exhausted by
boiling ether and the solvent left to spontaneous evaporations. The
residue, amounting to 5.57 grammes after dessications at 100 degrees C.,
was reduced in weight to 4.17, the loss 1.40 grammes being the essential
oil, which was 8.2 per cent. The residue, amounting to 24.5 per cent.,
was thick, aromatic balsam in which we can find no trace or presence of
fat, but, instead, it consisted of resin and semi-resinified aromatic
oil. Alcohol extracts from this 1.4 per cent. of uncrystallizable sugar,
which may be reduced by cupric oxide. The drug after this treatment with
alcohol and ether yields scarcely anything to cold water, but boiling
water extracts 1.8 per cent. of mucilage, which takes a blue color if
treated with iodine, or a reddish-violet if previously dried. This test
shows that it has qualities quite different from those of nutmegs. This
substance is not soluble in an ammoniacal solution of cupric oxide; it
seems rather to be an intermediary body between gum and starch, and may
be called amylodextrin.[7] It is distinguished from the true starch by
being stained reddish brown instead of blue by an aqueous solution of
iodine; the grains of amylodextrin[7] do not appear to contain even a
nucleus of starch. As seen under the microscope, they have usually
somewhat the form of a rod and are often curved or coiled; less often
they are roundish or disc-shaped; they do not usually exhibit any
evident stratification.
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Footnote 7:
Amyloceous, starchy.
Chemical composition:
Water, 5.67
Ash, 4.10
Volatile Oil, 4.04
Resin, 27.50
Undetermined, 41.17
Crude Fiber, 8.93
Albuminoids, 4.55
Nitrogen, .73
The city of Macassar, Celebes, exported during the first nine months of
the year 1905, $4,520.61 worth of mace; and Padang, Sumatra, exported
$1,617.17 during the same time. The city of Singapore exported
$22,710.12 worth during the year 1904.
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[Illustration: MUSTARD
1 Flowering stem with leaves
2 Flower
3 Pod
4 Yellow seed
5 Black seed]