Unlike the Tin Islands of Herodotus, there really were Spice Islands. Cloves, the unopened flower bud of Syzygium aromaticum, a tall fir, until recently grew only in the volcanic soil of five tiny islands—Ternate, Tidore, Moti, Makian, and Bacan—in the north Moluccas, an island group in eastern Indonesia. Nutmeg and mace come from different parts of the fruit of Myristica fragrans, a tree that grew only on nine fly specks—the Bandas—in the southern part of the Moluccas.
