Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

23 FAMILY HERBAL
and has a dusky red coat or shell, but it is
white within. This is the part used in medicine,
for the whole fruit is not regarded. The
anacardium, or kernel, is said to be a cordial,
and a strengthener of the nerves, but we do not
much use it. There is a very sharp liquor between
the outer and inner rinds of the shell,
which will take away freckles from the skin,
but it is so sharp that the ladies must be cau-
tious how they use it.
The West-India-Bean, or Cashew Nut-Tree,
Arbor acqjou vulgo cajou,
IT appears by the description of the anacardium
how very improperly it is called a nut,
for it is the kernel of a large fruit, though
growing in a singular manner. The case is just
the same with respect to the Cashew nut, for it
is neither a nut nor a bean, any
more than the
other : but it is necessary to keep to the common
names, and it is proper they should be mentioned
together.
The tree which produces it is large and spreading
; the bark is of a pale colour, rough and
cracked, and the wood is brittle. The leaves
are half a foot long, and two or three inches
broad, blunt at the end, and of a fine green
colour. The flowers are small, but they grow
in tufts together. The fruit is of the bigness
and shape of a pear, and of an orange and pur-
ple colour mixt together ; the Cashew nut or
bean, as it is called, hangs
naked from the
bottom of this fruit. It is of the bigness of a
garden bean, and indented in the manner of a
kidney ; it is of a greyish colour, and consists of
$ shelly covering, and a fine white fleshy sub-