The Cashew-Nut. 277 



English wild-flowers, as the scarlet pimpernel and the 

 wayside plantains, so true is it that no marvel of the far- 

 away is without a presignifying miniature in Old England. 

 The sapucajas exposed for sale all come from Para". 



The first mention of the Lecythis and its wonderful 

 urn appears in Piso's "Account of the Medicinal and 

 other Plants of Brazil," published at Leyden, in 1648. 

 After that it seems to have been left unnoticed by 

 travellers till the time of Aublet, who, in 1775, gives 

 some particulars in the " Histoire des Plantes de la 

 Guiane Franaise," and names the tree " Lecythis grandi- 

 flora." Another species, the Lecythis Ollaria, is in most 

 respects similar to the Zabucajo, but the kernels are not 

 so palatable, leaving in the mouth a sense of bitterness. 

 It was upon this one that Linnaeus would seem to have 

 founded the genus, ollarius being the Latin word for 

 anything made or kept in a " pot," the special feature of 

 the plant as made known to him by the writings of Piso. 

 Miers, in his monograph of the order to which these 

 trees belong, the Lecythidacese, distinguishes the Bertho- 

 lettia by the name of nobilis, and the sapucaja-tree as 

 Lecythis usitata. 



THE CASHEW-NUT (Anacardium occidental). 



THE Cashew-nut is produced by a tree usually about 

 sixteen feet in stature, in general appearance not unlike a 

 walnut, and growing spontaneously, in great abundance, 



