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Fruit-bearing Trees - Cashew

It's a fruit

A native of tropical America, the cashew tree grows naturalised in the hotter seashores of the Indian subcontinent. Called mundiri in Tamil, it is botanically known as Anacardium occidentale; its specific name (the second part of its botanical name) is indicative of its origin in the west. Surely, you'll see these trees growing near the shore on way to Mahabalipuram.

We've had occasion to mention cashew apple. It is a false fruit, not formed as a result of the growth of the ovary but it is a fruit-like structure formed from the flower stalk into which flowed a large quantity of sugary food in the wake of fertilisation.

The fruit proper is a kidney-shaped nut with a woody fruit-wall, seated upon the cashewapple. The cashew of commerce (mundiri paruppu) is the seed, enclosed within the hard shell. The seed proper also is kidney-shaped, in conformity with the shape of the nut and is covered by a thin, brown seed coat, which can be easily peeled off by applying small pressure.

On removal of the seed coat, two fleshy cotyledons, again shaped like a kidney, pressed against one another with the small embryo held between them at one end, come into view. This forms the edible part. This is the kernel and is extremely tasty, eaten raw or roasted or often added to preparations such as payasam or puliyodarai for enhancing the taste.

Export of the seed earns foreign exchange, worth many millions of dollars for the country. The cashew industry is well organised in Kerala, with the workers well trained in grading the seed, so that the export market is better served.

The cashew apple has an attractive reddish or yellowish colour. Its juice, on fermentation, yields the famous alcoholic beverage called pheni, a very popular drink in Goa.

The shell oil of cashew is used in folk-medicine for treatment of hookworm, cracks on soles of feet, warts and corns. Leperous sores also are believed to heal on application of cashew shell oil.

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The bark has alterative properties i.e., it has the effect of causing a favourable change in the disordered functioning of the body. The bark and leaves are useful in lessening acute toothache and the inflammation of gums.

The cashew tree is small, with short, thick, crooked trunk. Its leaves are large and obovate which means that they are narrow at the base, broadening towards the outer end. The flowers are yellow, streaked with pink and are aggregated into large, branching flowering portions (panicles), as in mango.

Incidentally, the cashew and mango are members of the same family - Anacardiarcae.