Mondo Knows Facts

Cloves grew only in the Moluccas

The dried flower buds came from a few islands in eastern Indonesia Cloves are the dried buds of Syzygium aromaticum, a tree that grew wild on a few small islands in the northern Moluccas. Harvesters climbed the trees and knocked down the buds before they opened, then dried them until they turned dark brown. Like nutmeg, the trade was controlled and later broken by smuggled seedlings, this time to Zanzibar and Madagascar. It sits in Mondo's food collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

More facts like this

Tags: clove, indonesia, spice-trade

Cloves grew only in the Moluccas: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
The dried flower buds came from a few islands in eastern Indonesia. The figure is taken from Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a food fact?
Yes. It sits on the Food shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.