NUTS AND OTHER SEEDS 



517 



Three rather closely related f amilies of trees the walnuts, 

 the birches, and the beeches furnish most of our edible nuts. 

 From the first come walnuts, butternuts, pecans, and hickory 

 nuts ; from the second, hazelnuts and filberts ; and from the 

 third, beechnuts and chestnuts. 



The rose family furnishes almonds, which are technically 

 drupes, closely related to peaches (Fig. 164). 



Brazil nuts are the seeds of lofty South American trees of a 

 tropical family allied to the mangroves and the myrtles. 



FIG. 384. A grove of cocoa palms in the Philippines 

 After Frye 



494. Chocolate, tea, and coffee. These familiar substances 

 are derived from plants of three different families, the first 

 two being somewhat nearly related tropical or sub-tropical 

 ones. 



Chocolate consists of the ground or crushed seeds of the 

 cacao tree, a native of Mexico, now widely cultivated through- 

 out the tropics. Eemoval of a large part of the aromatic fat 

 known as cacao butter, which is considerably used hi medicine, 

 leaves cocoa, which forms for some people a more digestible 

 beverage than chocolate. 



