Plant
Cashew
Anacardium occidentale
Also known as: Anacardium occidentale
An evergreen tropical tree native to northeastern Brazil, now cultivated across tropical Asia and Africa for its kidney-shaped seed (the cashew nut) and accessory fruit (the cashew apple). Each tree produces fruits in which the seed hangs externally below a swollen pseudofruit — a botanical curiosity with two harvests. Vietnam, India, and Côte d'Ivoire lead global production; the labor-intensive shell-removal process (the shell contains caustic urushiol-related oil) makes cashew processing one of the most labor-dependent nut industries.
Scientific
Anacardium occidentale is in family Anacardiaceae. The tree reaches 10–14 m and bears unusual two-part fruits: the true botanical fruit is the kidney-shaped drupe (the cashew nut), which hangs at the bottom of a fleshy swollen pedicel — the cashew apple — that ripens into a yellow or red pseudofruit. The shell surrounding the seed contains caustic phenolic oil (cashew nutshell liquid, CNSL) chemically similar to poison ivy’s urushiol; raw shelling requires roasting and is hazardous to unprotected workers.
Cultural
Cashew is native to the Cerrado and northeast Brazilian coast, where Indigenous Tupí peoples consumed both the apple (fresh, fermented into wines) and the toasted seed. Portuguese traders carried the tree to Goa in the 1500s and from there across India, East Africa, and Southeast Asia, where it found ecological niches and became a major commercial crop. The cashew apple, highly perishable, remains a Brazilian and West African beverage staple but rarely enters global trade.
Global production
Vietnam, India, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Philippines are top producers; Côte d’Ivoire is now the largest raw-nut producer, with much processing done in Vietnam and India. Cashew processing — shell removal, peeling, grading — is famously labor-intensive and concentrated in low-wage settings; reform of working conditions in the sector has been a long-running labor issue in India.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Shares approach with: [[pistachio]] · [[mango]]
- Member of: [[plants]]
Sources
- FAO commodity statistics
- ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) cashew materials
- Wikipedia — Cashew
A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].
What links here, and how
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Scientific
shares approach with
- Pistachio both Anacardiaceae — the cashew family — alongside mango and sumac
1 inbound link · 3 outbound