The Myristica fragrans, which stands at around 24 feet tall, was planted at Eden when the project first opened in 2001 and has now produced fruit for the first time.
In the wild the trees can live to 100 years old and yield an average 2,000 – 3,000 nutmegs per season.
Catherine Cutler, Eden’s Biomes Manager, visited Grenada – the world’s second-largest producer of nutmegs – in 2002 on a research trip. She and her team are now collecting fruits falling from the Eden nutmeg to see if they can grow more trees.
She said: “Seeing our nutmeg tree in fruit for the first time is a momentous occasion for us. Our research points to Eden being the only garden in the UK to achieve this, but we’d be fascinated to hear from anyone who may have managed to coax a nutmeg tree to produce fruit.”
Catherine added: “We’re excited to see if we can successfully grow more nutmeg trees from this season’s harvest, possibly allowing us to provide productive plants to other botanic gardens. There are currently around 20 nutmegs on our tree and we’re hopeful that the tree will now produce them every year.”
Nutmeg trees are difficult to grow without the correct conditions. They must be sown almost immediately, require humid conditions and temperatures of between 25 - 30°C.
If successful, it can take up to eight years for a female nutmeg tree to bear fruit, requiring a mature male counterpart to be nearby or grafted onto the female plant.
It is the only tropical fruit of its kind, providing two different spices: nutmeg from the inner seed and mace, made from the vivid red covering that forms a lattice around the nutmeg seed.
Myristica fragrans, also known as fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg, is native to the tiny Banda archipelago of islands in Indonesia, known as the Spice Islands.
This remote location, 2,000km east of Java, led to nutmeg being one of the rarest, most sought-after and fought-over spices for centuries. It’s believed that export of the spice dates back as far as the 6th Century, with records placing it in Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul).
Control over trade saw monopolies on export at times sitting with the Ottoman Turks, the Portuguese and eventually the Dutch. It was considered so valuable that every nutmeg was doused in lime before export to make them infertile.
Eventually, French horticulturist Pierre Poivre managed to smuggle samples to Mauritius in 1769, successfully growing productive plants and ultimately ending Dutch reign over the commodity.
Nutmeg was prized not only for the flavour it added to food. It was also used for its scent and supposed medicinal properties – many attested to its power to ward off the Black Death.
Today, the Banda islands still export around 75 per cent of the world’s nutmeg, with Grenada supplying approximately 20 per cent.
Keen-eyed visitors will be able to spot the apricot-like fruits on the tree in the spices exhibit of the Rainforest Biome from now through to April.
