Syzygium aromaticum (L.) Merr. & Perry, Mem. Amer. Ac. 18 (1939)

Synonyms
Caryophyllus aromaticus L.
Caryophyllus hortensis Noronha
Caryophyllus sylvestris Teysm. ex Hassk.
Eugenia aromatica (L.) Baill.
Eugenia caryophyllata Thunb.
Eugenia caryophyllus (Spreng.) Bullock & S.G.Harrison
Jambosa aromatica (L.) Miq.
Jambosa argyrophyllus Nied.
Jambosa caryophyllus (Thunb.) Nied.
Myrtus caryophyllus Spreng.

Diagnostics
Small tree up to 20 m tall and 25 cm dbh. Stipules absent. Leaves opposite, simple, penni-veined with marginal vein, venation barely visible, glabrous. Flowers ca. 6 mm diameter, whitish?, with protruding stamens, flowers placed in panicles. Fruits ca. 30 mm long, green-red, fleshy berry.

Description
Village tree, to 20 m tall with rounded crown. Parts hairless. Twig c.4 mm diameter, elliptic, smooth, pale grey-brown. Leaf blade c.12 x 7(6-17 x 2.5-8) cm, obovate, leathery, drying dull grey-green above, paler yellowish green beneath; base wedge-shaped, tapering into c.1 cm slender stalk, apex acute to shortly bluntly acuminate; faintly pitted above, pimpled beneath; veins unequal, c.11 main pairs, very slender, distinct but hardly and equally raised on both surfaces, furrowed above, ascending; tertiaries visible; intramarginal vein 1, 1-3 mm within margin, hardly arched. Panicle 3-terminal or subterminal axillary, to 7 cm long, slender, round, 2-branched. Flower calyx 15 x 6 mm, the clove, with cup shaped bud on long tapering pseudostalk, sepal lobes 4, triangular, claw-like; stamens many, white. Fruit 3 x 1.5 cm, ellipsoid, with apical ring of incurved fleshy sepal lobes, ripening green. [from Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak]

Ecology
In Borneo rare, only cultivated with perhaps some escaped trees.

Uses
Cultivated for the flowers (clove), which are used as food spice and mixed with tobacco in 'kretek' cigarettes.

Distribution
Originally from the Moluccas, but currently cultivated pan-tropical. In Borneo collected from Sarawak and East-Kalimantan, but probably throughout the island near villages and houses.

Local names
Borneo: Cangkeh, Cengkeh.