304 NATUBAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



purposes as Gum x4.rabio. This bark also contains mucli tanuin; 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 fruit (Cashew Nut) is hard and woody, the pericarp is not 

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

 with a purple 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 forms 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. 

 humile ^ 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 

 Apple (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 drinks, 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 bacciform, rising 

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

 With the peduncle of 8. Anacardium^ fermented drinks and con- 



1 See A. S. H. Inc. cit. de Marais, jFh'e de Malac). The Note apple is 



2 On its mode of development, see H. Bn. the fleshy preduncle of the It/itts atra Fokst. 

 in Adansonia, xi. 162. named hy Vieillakd (in Ann. So. Nat. ser. 4, 



3 L. riL. Suppl. 182. — DC. Prodr. ii. 62. — xvi. 71) S. atra, whose roasted seeds are eaten 

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

 card. 148. — 5. Cassiwium Speeng. — Anacardhim NolS resin is caustic and poisonous. The apple. 

 latifolmm Lamk. Diet. i. 139. — A. ojicinarum is used to prepare a fermented drink. 

 GjERTM. Frtect.i. 192 (Anacarde d' Orient, Nciz 



