Nuts. 249 



are only such fruits as the filbert and the chestnut. 

 They are always seated in some kind of "cupule" or 

 cup-like husk; the beau-ideal of the former presenting 

 itself in the fruit of the oak-tree. Walnuts and coco- 

 nuts, as placed upon the table, may be compared to plum 

 and cherry-stones ; juvias and sapucajas are only seeds, 

 with intensely hard integuments. Charged with carbon 

 and with oil, nuts are highly nutritious, though with some 

 persons, on account of the abundance of the oil, not 

 easily digestible. In addition to their suitableness for 

 food, and their agreeable flavours, being insusceptible of 

 bruise or wound, and usually keeping good for a con- 

 siderable length of time, they have the great advantage 

 over most of the juicy fruits in allowing of easy transfer 

 from place to place. In England we are apt to think 

 of nuts only as pleasant additions to the established bill- 

 of-fare : many people would never miss them were they 

 cast out of sight. Very different is it in foreign countries. 

 No further away than in southern Europe, a staple is 

 found in the chestnut. 



The etymology of the word "nut" is not precisely 

 determined. It seems to have come from the same 

 source as "knot," meaning a hard round lump, Latin 

 nodus. Some botanists extend the name of nut to the 

 seed-like fruits of the Labiatae, the Boraginaceae, the 

 Cyperaceae, and the Polygonacese. Popularly, it is 

 applied also, after the manner of the French pomme to 

 the potato, to various tuber-like parts of plants, as when 

 we speak of pig-nuts, the tubers of the Bunium flexuosum. 



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