Nutmeg family
Description
A small family of evergreen, aromatic trees with a reddish sap in the bark, occurring throughout the tropics but centred in the lowland rainforests of Asia (M. fragrans 1).
The leaves are alternate and simple, often with pellucid dots. The flowers are borne in axillary inflorescences, small, usually dioecious. The calyx is usually 3-lobed, cupshaped; petals are absent. Female flowers with a superior ovary, male ones with many stamens united into a column. The fruit is fleshy and splitting into 2 valves, exposing a single seed enveloped in a often divided red aril.
There are 16 genera.
Use
The seed of one Myristica-species is the nutmeg, its aril provides mace.
Described species
Myristica fragrans, nutmeg