MISCELLANEOUS NUTS. 371 



most popular of Oriental fruits, and the ti'ees would 

 probably succeed in many of the Southern States and in 

 California. It is now on trial in Florida, having been 

 introduced there in 1886. It has been fruited in Eng- 

 land many times, but always under glass, where the 

 plants receive protection and artificial heat. A full 

 description of this species, accompanied by a superb col- 

 ored plate of the Nephelium or Dimocarpus Longanct, ap- 

 peared in the "Transactions of the London Horticultural 

 Society," 1818, p. 402. There are not only a large num- 

 ber of species of the Nepheliums bearing edible fruit, 

 but, as might be expected from their long and extensive 

 cultivation, many local varieties, especially in the south- 

 ern provinces of China and throughoiit the islands of 

 tropical Asia. The Dawa of the Fiji islands is the fruit 

 of N. pinnatum, a tree growing sixty feet high, and 

 forming extensive forests on those islands. At some 

 future time we may be receiving the dawas under the 

 name of Fiji nuts. 



Lousy nut. — See Earth chestnut. 



Marking nut. — The seeds of Semecarpus Anacar- 

 dium, an evergreen tree of the cashew-nut family {Ana- 

 cardiacem), native of tropical Asia, and especially Cey- 

 lon. It has large, oblong leaves, and grows about fifty 

 feet high, and the fruit is produced on a fleshy recepta- 

 cle. The natives roast and eat these nuts, and the black 

 juice obtained from the green fruit is used for marking 

 cloth, hence the common name. The juice is also mixed 

 with lime to make an excellent indelible ink, also for a 

 kind of varnish. 



Miriti nut or ita palm nut. — These are the 

 Indian names of the fruit of a lofty palm tree, the Mau- 

 ritia flexuosa, of the swamps along the Orinoco river, 

 also in wet soils at higher elevations. This giant palm 

 grows to a hight of a hundred and fifty feet, with an 

 immense crown of large, fan-shaped leaves, and just 



