One of France's colonial enterprises in the eighteenth century was to acclimatize nutmeg, native to the Maluku islands, in the French colony of Isle de France (today's Mauritius). Exploring the acclimatization of nutmeg as a practice, this paper reveals the practical challenges of transferring knowledge between Indo-Pacific islands in the second half of the eighteenth century. This essay will look at the process through which knowledge was created-including ruptures and fractures-as opposed to looking at the mere circulation of knowledge. I argue that nutmeg cultivation on Isle de France was a complex process of creolizing expertise originating from the local populations of the plants' native islands with the horticultural knowledge of colonists, settlers, labourers and slaves living on Isle de France. In this respect, creolization describes a process of knowledge production rather than a form of knowledge. Once on Isle de France, nutmeg took root in climate and soil conditions which were different from those of its native South East Asian islands. It was cultivated by slaves and colonists who lacked prior experience with the cultivation of this particular spice. Experienced horticulturalists experimented with their own traditions. While they relied on old assumptions, they also came to question them. By examining cultivation as an applied practice, this paper argues that the creolization of knowledge was a critical aspect in French colonial botany.

A unique nutmeg accession having normal fruit, but with rudimentary, sterile seed and finely packed mace having a human brain like appearance was collected from a farmer’s garden from the secondary center of domestication of the crop and characterized. Seed (female) sterility in a dioecious or emerging monoecious plant like nutmeg is hitherto not recorded and is a novelty. This unique accession is conserved at the germplasm conservatory of tree spices at the ICAR-Indian Institute of Spices Research, Kozhikode, Kerala.

The living collection of plants in the nutmeg family, Myristicaceae, has been increasing at the Botanic Garden of Delft University of Technology (Delft BG) since 2001. Horticultural and research staff there have been exploring the horticultural requirements, molecular structure and chemical composition of these plants since then. This paper comments on the historical importanceof this family and the processes required to acquire live plant material. In recent years the significance of the mycorrhizal associations formed by the family and the consequences for their cultivation have been identified and these are described here along with the most effective methods of propagation as identified by staff at Delft BG.

Summary Both historical studies and popular accounts tend to present European expansion and the discovery of the New World as the achievements of daring adventurers who were seeking the thrill of novelty. But what leads people to take risks in everyday life is the hope of gaining an advantage - usually a financial one. If we consider European economic activity before the "discovery" of the New World by Christopher Columbus, it is clear that it was mainly the centers of the spice trade where wealth was accumulated. The palaces of Venice and Genoa, the riches of the Fugger and Welser merchant families of southern Germany, and the splendor of Lisbon and Amsterdam were established mainly on the profits from the spice trade. The route the spices took from the East Indies to the Occident was both difficult and dangerous. The spices were mostly harvested by slaves, and then sailed or paddled in tiny praos from the Spice Islands (the Moluccas) to Malacca. From there, they were shi...

Both historical studies and popular accounts tend to present European expansion and the discovery of the New World as the achievements of daring adventurers who were seeking the thrill of novelty. But what leads people to take risks in everyday life is the hope of gaining an advantage- usually a financial one. If we consider European economic activity before the "discovery " of the New World by Christopher Columbus, it is clear that it was mainly the centers of the spice trade where wealth was accumulated. The palaces of Venice and Genoa, the riches of the Fugger and Welser merchant families of southern Germany, and the splendor of Lisbon and Amsterdam were established mainly on the profits from the spice trade. The route the spices took from the East Indies to the Occident was both difficult and dangerous. The spices were mostly harvested by slaves, and then sailed or paddled in tiny praos from the Spice Islands (the Moluccas) to Malacca. From there, they were shipped in ...