Plant · P-645

Clove

Syzygium aromaticum

Clove is a dense evergreen tropical tree grown for a single product: the unopened flower bud, picked and dried into the familiar spice used in baking and mincemeat and chewed after meals for fresh breath. Its essential oil, mostly eugenol, flavours bakery goods and chewing gum, blends into perfumes and potpourri, and has a long history as a warming, strongly antiseptic remedy for toothache, digestion and colds. It is a long game rather than a quick crop - the tree takes eight to ten years just to start bearing and twenty to thirty years to reach full production - but it can then keep bearing for over a century, with the oldest known tree recorded at 375 years old. It wants steady tropical warmth with no real dry season and needs shelter and part shade while young.