Caryocar nuciferum, the butter-nut of Guiana, is a fruit tree native to Central and South America.
Description
Caryocar nuciferum grows up to 35 metres (115 ft) in humid forests. Flowers are hermaphroditic and in small clusters. The large coconut-sized fruit, weighs about 3 kilograms (6.6 lb), is round or pear-shaped some 10–15 centimetres (4–6 in) in diameter, and greyish-brown in colour. The outer skin is leathery, about 1 millimetre (1⁄16 in) thick, and covered in rust-coloured lenticels.
The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911) calls the fruit "perhaps the finest of all [those] called nuts. The kernel is large, soft, and even sweeter than the almond, which it somewhat resembles in taste."[1]
Pulp of the mesocarp is oily and sticky, holding 1–4 hard, woody, warty stones, with tasty, reniform endocarp.
The endocarp is eaten raw or roasted, and produces a nondrying edible oil.[citation needed] The wood is durable and used for boat building. The correctly expressed oil of its nuts produces an effective healing balm.
