304 NATUBAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



purposes as Gum Arabic. This bark also contains much tannin, like 

 the leaves ; it is used to curry leather, and prepare astringent lotions 

 and gargles. It is said that by drinking from a vessel whose rim 

 has been rubbed with the leaves one becomes rapidly intoxicated. 

 The root is considered, on the contrary, in the Antilles, to be purga- 

 tive. The fi-uit (Cashew Nut) is hard and woody, the pericarp is not 

 edible ; it is only remarkable for the large hollows it contains filled 

 with a pui'ple oleaginous juice, blackening on exposure, as acrid as 

 creosote, employed like it for toothache, reddening and burning the 

 skin and mucous membrane, destroying warts, modifying power- 

 fully eruptive and ulcerated surfaces, and useful to make 

 blisters. The burnt pericarp fomns a tooth-powder. The seeds are 

 sweet ; and the embryo rich in an oil employed for the preparation of 

 loches and emulsions applied on the skin in cases of rheumatism, 

 sprains, and burns. The cotyledons are eaten raw or fried ; a sort 

 of chocolate is made with them. The properties of A. nanum and A. 

 hiimile^ are the same. In all the species the most considerable portion 

 of the fruit is the hypertrophic peduncle, usually piriform, having 

 the parenchyma gorged with juices,^ and taking the name of Cashew 

 Aj^ple (fig. 324). The consistence is that of a berry, the colour 

 white, yellow, or red, according to the variety ; the flavour sourish, 

 or more or less acrid and astringent. Conserves are made from it, 

 and particularly that famous " Fool's Confection" of Hoffmann, 

 whose use, it was said, gave intelligence and memory to those most 

 destitute of them. Fermented druiks, wine, alcohol, and vinegar 

 may be extracted from it. In Brazil it is a reputed sudorific, 

 diuretic, and antisyphilitic, from whence its common name of 

 Sarsaparilla of the poor. In Semecarpus there is also a pedun- 

 cular swelling which becomes fleshy and baceiform, rising 

 more or less high around the true pericarp, often encircling the base. 

 With the peduncle of S. Anacardium^ fermented drinlcs and con- 



' See A. S. H. }nc. eil. de Marais, Fire de MnJnc). The iV//e apple is 



2 On its mode of development, see H. B.v. the fleshy pred\mcle of the Illni!: atra Foust. 



in Adaiis'initt, xi. 162. named by Vieillakd (in Ann. So. Nat. eer. 4, 



' L. FiL. Suppl. 182. — DC. Frodf. ii. 62. — xvi. 71) S. atra, whose roasted seeds are eaten 



Gum. op. cit. iii. 491, fig. 704. — March. Ana- in New Caledonia. The juice of the stalk or 



card. 148. — S. Cnssiirium Spreng. — Aiiacnrdiiim NnU resin is caustic and poisonous. The apple 



ItttifoVmm Lamk. Did. i. 139. — A. ojUciiiarum is used to prepare a fermented drink. 

 G.iiUTN. Frurl. i. 192 {A'.acnide d'OriciH, Noix 



