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The clove is an evergreen tree growing to a height of 7-15 m. The trunk is conical when young, later becoming roughly cylindrical. It begins to fork near the base, into two or three main erect branches.
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The smaller branches are semi-erect, the twigs are brittle, smooth and greyish-white in colour, and the whole head is bushy and dense. The leaves are simple, opposite, exstipulate, glabrous and aromatic owing to plenty of oil glands on the lower surface. The lamina is lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, bluntly acuminate at the apex, cuneate and bare.
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The new leaves appear in flushes and are bright pink. Later, the upper surface becomes glossy and dark green and wavy with recurved leaf margins. The hermaphrodite flowers are borne on a terminal, corymbose, trichotomous panicle. The inflorescence is shortly pedunculate, branched from the base and shorter than the leaves.
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The bracts and bracteoles are narrow, acute and fall quickly. The number of flowers varies from 3 to 50; a fleshy hypanthium is present, surrounded by the sepals. The hypanthium is green in the young bud, flushed pink at anthesis and turns deep red after the stamens fall. Above the sepals, there are four dome-shaped whitish petals.
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After fertilisation, the stamens and styles invariably fall. The lower part of the flower along with the calyx develops into a fleshy, dark, one-seeded drupe. The sepals are reduced to triangular projections and this is popularly known as the 'mother of clove'. The stamens are numerous, the anthers are pale yellow, with a small, pale brown, inconspicuous connective gland.
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The style is very stout, swollen at the base, pale green and dotted with glands. The two-celled, multi-ovate, inferior ovary is embedded at the top of the hypanthium. The fruit (mother-of-clove) is usually a single-seeded drupe, but occasionally contains two seeds also.
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