UPPSC 2021 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 146 of 150

Correct — C, Flower bud. The clove of commerce is the dried, unopened flower bud of the evergreen tree Syzygium aromaticum (family Myrtaceae). The buds are picked while still closed — just as they turn from green to bright pink/red — and sun-dried; the familiar clove shape is a long calyx tube tipped with four sepals and a ball-shaped head of tightly folded, unopened petals. Because the structure is a bud that would have opened into a flower, a clove is a flower bud.

• (a)Terminal bud — Wrong — a terminal (apical) bud sits at the growing tip of a stem or branch and extends the main shoot; a clove is not a shoot-tip bud, it is a bud borne on the flowering shoot that would have produced a flower.
• (b)Accessory bud — Wrong — accessory buds are the extra buds that form beside a main axillary bud at a node; the term describes a bud's position, not the clove, which is specifically a reproductive (flower) bud.
• (d)Vegetative bud — Wrong — a vegetative bud develops into leaves and shoots, not flowers. A clove is reproductive: left on the tree it would have opened into a flower, so it is a flower bud, not a vegetative one.

Buds are classified by position (terminal/apical vs axillary/lateral, with accessory buds beside them) and by what they produce (vegetative buds → leaves/shoots; flower/reproductive buds → flowers). A clove is the classic example of an edible, unopened flower bud harvested as a spice — comparable to how broccoli and cauliflower are immature flower clusters, while saffron is the flower's stigma.

The trap is to reach for 'vegetative' or a positional term. Anchor instead on what a clove would have become: it is picked before opening precisely because the closed flower bud holds the maximum aromatic oil (eugenol). A bud that would open into a flower is, by definition, a flower bud.

• Clove = the dried, unopened flower bud of Syzygium aromaticum (family Myrtaceae).
• Buds are harvested before they open (when they turn pink/red) and then dried.
• The pungent aroma comes chiefly from eugenol in clove oil, used as an antiseptic and analgesic in dentistry.
• Leading producers are Indonesia, Madagascar and Tanzania (Zanzibar/Pemba); India grows cloves in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

• Choosing 'vegetative bud' by default — a clove is reproductive, not vegetative
• Confusing which plant part a spice comes from (clove = flower bud, not seed, fruit or leaf)

UPPSC and UPSC ask 'which plant part yields spice X' or classify a named structure (clove, saffron, cinnamon) as bud/stigma/bark/fruit.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The spice clove is obtained from which part of the plant Syzygium aromaticum?

  • (a)Dried fruit
  • (b)Unopened flower bud
  • (c)Root bark
  • (d)Seed

  Answer(b) Unopened flower bud — picked before it opens and then dried.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A bud that grows into leaves and shoots (rather than flowers) is called a:

  • (a)Flower bud
  • (b)Vegetative bud
  • (c)Accessory bud
  • (d)Adventitious bud

  Answer(b) Vegetative bud — it produces leaves/shoots, whereas a flower bud produces flowers.