Cashew seed Anacardium occidentale
LATIN NAME: Anacardium occidentale
COMMON NAME: Cashew
LATIN NAME: Anacardium occidentale
COMMON NAME: Cashew
The cashew is a tree that does things its own way. The small, evergreen, spreading tree carries the glossy, oval leaves, and the loose clusters of the small, pinkish-yellow, scented flowers open through the warm season. What follows is the curious cashew fruit: the swollen, pear-shaped, yellow-orange cashew apple with the grey, kidney-shaped nut hanging below it. The tree is a fine, generous, long-lived addition to the warm, frost-free garden, and the nut is one of the great foods of the warm world. It is a tree of the warm, well-drained, sandy ground.
Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology
The research record on the cashew runs deep, and the tree has been studied for a long time for the curious way the nut forms below the swollen cashew apple. Plant scientists have looked at the oils of the nut shell, which carry a well-known irritating character, and the tree keeps showing up in the work on the warm-climate fruit trees and the tree nuts. The glossy, oval leaves and the scented flower clusters have also made it a fine garden tree, and the studies of the cashew apple and the nut keep the tree at the centre of the work on the tropical tree crops.
Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications
The cashew earns its keep in more than one way. The roasted, processed nut is one of the most eaten tree nuts of the world, and the swollen cashew apple is pressed for a fine, sweet juice and a syrup in the regions where the tree grows. The raw nut shell carries an irritating oil, which is why the commercial nuts are always heat-processed before they are eaten. The spreading, evergreen tree is also a fine, dependable shade tree of the warm, sandy coast. It has drawn attention in the international agricultural press for the curious fruit and the great trade in the nut, and it is a fine, generous tree of the warm, frost-free garden.
The cashew is a tree of the warm coasts and the dry, sandy plains, and the swollen, pear-shaped cashew apple is one of the most curious of the tree fruits. In the regions where it grows, the ripe fruits are gathered and pressed for the fine, sweet juice, and the trees hold the sandy ground well.
To grow the cashew from seed, soak the fresh, grey seeds in warm water for a day, then sow them at a depth of a couple of centimetres in pots of moist, free-draining soil, keep them in a warm, bright, sheltered spot and water gently. The seedlings come up steadily and grow on into fine, spreading young trees. Give them the warmth and the well-drained, sandy ground, and the curious fruits will be there in a few seasons.
The cashew tree is a tropical evergreen tree that produces the cashew nut and the cashew apple. It can grow as high as 14 m (46 ft), but the dwarf cashew, growing up to 6 m (20 ft), has proved more profitable, with earlier maturity and higher yields.
The species is originally native to northeastern Brazil. Portuguese colonists in Brazil began exporting cashew nuts as early as the 1550s. Major production of cashews occurs in Vietnam, Nigeria, India, and Ivory Coast
The cashew nut, often simply called a cashew, is widely consumed. It is eaten on its own, used in recipes, or processed into cashew cheese or cashew butter. The shell of the cashew seed yields derivatives that can be used in many applications including lubricants, waterproofing, paints, and arms production, starting in World War II. The cashew apple is a light reddish to yellow fruit, whose pulp can be processed into a sweet, astringent fruit drink or distilled into liquor.
The tree is small and evergreen, growing to 10-12m (~32 ft) tall, with a short, often irregularly shaped trunk. The leaves are spirally arranged, leathery textured, elliptic to obovate, 4 to 22 cm long and 2 to 15 cm broad, with a smooth margin. The flowers are produced in a panicle or corymb up to 26 cm long, each flower small, pale green at first then turning reddish, with five slender, acute petals 7 to 15 mm long. The largest cashew tree in the world covers an area of about 7,500 square metres (81,000 sq ft).
Cashew Nut Apple, Anacardium Occidentale, Rare Tropical Plant Tree Seeds with large leaves and pretty, pink flowers.Cashews, as you know them, are nuts. However, the cashew nut is not the only fruit of the cashew trees.The cashew nut is inside the funny looking, kidney shaped shell that is attached to the bottom of the cashew apple.The true fruit of the cashew tree is a kidney or boxing-glove shaped drupe that grows at the end of the cashew apple. The drupe develops first on the tree, and then the pedicel expands to become the cashew apple. Within the true fruit is a single seed, the cashew nut. The seed is surrounded by a double shell containing an allergenic phenolic resin, anacardic acid, a potent skin irritant chemically related to the better-known allergenic oil urushiol which is also a toxin found in the related poison ivy. Properly roasting cashews destroys the toxin. Some people are allergic to cashew nuts, but cashews are a less frequent allergen than nuts or peanuts.
Medicinal alternatives
The cashew nutshell liquid is composed of acids that have been used effectively against tooth abscesses due to their lethality to a wide range of Gram-positive bacteria. The bark is scraped an soaked overnight or boiled as an antidiarrheal; it also yields a gum used in varnish. Seeds are ground into powders used for anti-venom for snake bites. The nut oil is used topically as an anti-fungal and for healing cracked heels.