Anacardium occidentalie Linn

Cashews (Anacardium occidentale) are also known as Thea sinensis. Lacertaceae. Evergreen trees, up to 12 m tall, with latex. Leaves simple, alternate, oblong-ovate or obovate, leathery, entire, 10-20 cm long, 5-10 cm wide, glabrous. Panicles large, covered with rust-colored hairs. Flowers yellow, polygamous, carpel 1, containing 1 ovule. Nut reniform, compressed on both sides, ca. 2.5 cm long, with a hard, bitter-resin-containing exocarp containing oily, edible seeds; fruiting pedicels inflated to form large, fleshy, pear-like structures (pseudocarps), 5 to 9 cm long, bright yellow or red when ripe. Native to South America, now the world's tropical such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Madagascar and other places are cultivated. The south of China in recent years, there are also introduced. Expanded fruit stalks (pseudo-fruit) taste sweet and sour, edible or wine, nut seeds flavor can be fried, commonly known as cashew (ashew); shells to extract oil, can be made of insulating paint, waterproof paper, thick cardboard and other adhesives; oil and latex of the bark, can be used as paint.

The cashews are ripe,

The luxuriant cashew forest sings a happy song,

Please try it! Dear traveler,

This nectar-like juice,

will sweeten your parched heart.

--African Mozambique Ballad

The evergreen tree cashews from the Lacertidae family in tropical America ask little of mankind, and even thrive in unattended wastelands or on sandy beaches, but the offerings to mankind have always been tasty fruits and delectable delicacies.

The cashew is relatively drought-tolerant and can flower and fruit three times a year, with yellow flowers and light red stripes. For those who don't know botany, cashew gives a strange impression that its seeds grow on the outside of the fruit, catching on the lower end. In fact, the part we usually eat as a fruit is not the real fruit, but the butt, also called the false fruit, and the real fruit is the part we call the seed. The shape of the cashew nut is somewhat like a pear fruit, but much smaller, green when raw, gradually turning red when ripe, sweet and juicy to eat, slightly astringent, nutritious, and economic value is also very high.

Cashew nuts are valuable dried fruit and high-level dishes, containing protein up to 21%, oil content rate of 40%, a variety of vitamin content are also very high. In international trade, each ton of cashew nuts worth more than 5,000 U.S. dollars, worthy of the world's "four major dried fruit" one. Cashew nutshell oil rate of 11%, cashew oil can be polymerized to produce synthetic rubber. With cashew nut oil paint furniture can be resistant to high temperatures, according to reports, the U.S. space shuttle, is used after scientific treatment of cashew nut oil as the fuselage protective layer of paint.

Human cultivation of cashew has a history of more than 4,000 years, it is native to northeastern Brazil, the 16th century introduced into Asia and Africa, is now distributed in the north and south latitudes within 20 degrees of dozens of countries and regions, Brazil, India, Mozambique, and China's southwestern Hainan Province are widely planted. Hainan Province, the history of planting cashews only 50 years, but now the island has more than 200,000 acres of cashew orchards.

In Mozambique, Africa, cashews by the local people's special favor, whether in books and magazines, paintings, advertisements, calendars, carvings and other works, or in furniture, clothing and other daily necessities, cashews or cashew tree patterns can be seen everywhere, some of the cashews as the subject matter of the novels, essays, poems have been a large number of publications. Whenever the cashew nut ripening season, farmers wearing national costumes, cheerfully go to pick cashew nuts, laughing and singing, sprinkled all over the fields, a festive scene.

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Cashew, a "chicken cashew", for the fruit of the cashew tree, is an important dried fruit originating in the tropics, for the world famous nowadays one of the four major dried fruits (walnuts, walnuts and hazelnuts), to the shape of the fruit is like kidneys (commonly known as "cashews") and so named.

The cashew tree is a fruit tree of great economic value. The fruit stalk is sour, spicy and sweet, and can be eaten or used to make wine. The nut is very high in nutritional value, rich in protein, fat and carbohydrates, sweet and savory flavor, fried, salted, candied sugar can be. If you want to save time, put on the fire frying is also OK, after frying the nuts crispy and delicious. "Fake fruit" is also rich in fruit juice and vitamin C, can be eaten raw as a fruit, can also be used to make jam. Cashews are rich in fruit juice, can be drunk directly, is a cool and smooth drink; also to be used as fermentation or wine, in medicine is widely used in diabetic blood cleanser. The oil content of the kernel is up to 40%, which is a kind of high-grade edible oil. From the husk can be extracted an aromatic oil, used in pharmaceuticals, refining high-grade lubricants or synthetic rubber, the oil extracted from the husk, can also be used to make insulating paints, waterproof paper, thick cardboard and other adhesives. The milky sap overflowing from the bark can be made into paint, which can be applied to wood or ships to provide preservation and protection against white ants. The wood of the cashew tree is a good material for making furniture. The leaves and roots of the cashew tree can be used to make medicinal tea. It can be said that the cashew tree is a treasure of the whole body.