Caryocar nuciferum
Caryocar nuciferum, the butter-nut of Guiana, is a fruit tree native to Central and South America.
Description
Caryocar nuciferum grows up to in humid forests. Flowers are hermaphroditic and in small clusters. The large coconut-sized fruit, weighs about, is round or pear-shaped some in diameter, and greyish-brown in colour. The outer skin is leathery, about thick, and covered in rust-coloured lenticels.The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition calls the fruit "perhaps the finest of all called nuts. The kernel is large, soft, and even sweeter than the almond, which it somewhat resembles in taste."
Pulp of the mesocarp is oily and sticky, holding 1–4 hard, woody, warty stones, with tasty, reniform endocarp.
Taxonomy
Caryocar nuciferum is illustrated and discussed in detail in Curtis's Botanical Magazine volume 54, and figured on using material sent from the island of Saint Vincent by Lansdown Guilding.It is also known as pekea-nut, or – like all other species of Caryocar with edible nuts – "souari-nut" or "sawarri-nut".