Semecarpus Anacardium (White Bhilawa)
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''Semecarpus anacardium'', commonly known as the marking nut tree, Malacca bean tree, marany nut, oriental cashew, dhobi nut tree and varnish tree, is a native of India, found in the outer
Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...
to the
Coromandel Coast The Coromandel Coast is a coastal region along the southeastern front of the Indian peninsula. Its delimitations are numerous, but generally admitted to be bounded by the Krishna River, Krishna river River mouth, mouth to the north, the Bay of B ...
. It is closely related to the
cashew Cashew is the common name of a tropical evergreen tree ''Anacardium occidentale'', in the family Anacardiaceae. It is native to South America and is the source of the cashew nut and the cashew apple, an accessory fruit. The tree can grow as t ...
.


Etymology

''Semecarpus anacardium'' was called the "marking nut" by Europeans because it was used by washermen to mark cloth and clothing before washing, as it imparted a water
insoluble In chemistry, solubility is the ability of a substance, the solute, to form a solution with another substance, the solvent. Insolubility is the opposite property, the inability of the solute to form such a solution. The extent of the solub ...
mark to the cloth. The
specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...
''anacardium'' ("up-heart") was used by
apothecaries ''Apothecary'' () is an archaic English term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses '' materia medica'' (medicine) to physicians, surgeons and patients. The modern terms ''pharmacist'' and, in British English, ''chemist'' have ...
in the 16th century to refer to the plant's fruit. It was later used by
Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
to refer to the cashew.


Description

It is a
deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...
tree. Like the closely related cashew, the fruit is composed of two parts, a reddish-orange
accessory fruit An accessory fruit is a fruit that contains tissue derived from plant parts other than the Ovary (botany), ovary. In other words, the flesh of the fruit develops not from the floral ovary, but from some adjacent tissue exterior to the carpel (f ...
and a black
drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pip'' (UK), ''pit'' (US), ''stone'', or ''pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed ...
that grows at the end. The nut is about long, ovoid and smooth lustrous black. The accessory fruit is edible and sweet when ripe, but the black fruit is toxic and produces a severe allergic reaction if it is consumed or its resin comes in contact with the skin. The seed inside the black fruit, known as godambi (गोडंबी), is edible when properly prepared.


Uses

In medieval times, ''Semecarpus anacardium'' was thought to aid in memory retention, for which cause the following dictum became widespread among Jewish scholars: "Repeat our lessons and repeat our lessons but never stand in need of the marking nut!"
Joseph Molcho Joseph Molcho (; 1692 – 1768 was a rabbi and judge from Thessaloniki, Greece. He is considered one of the most important Greek-Jewish rabbis of his generation, having published several books, including the ''Shulḥan Gavoah'' (), a restatement ...
, ''Shulchan Gavohah'' (''Yoreh De'ah'' 51:6). Quote: "I have heard from those who speak the truth that ''balador'' (= the marking nut) is a certain drug whose nature is very hot and that he who eats it endangers himself due to its excessive heat, but it causes an exceptional retainment of one's memory. Now there was a certain wise disciple f the Sages here in Thessaloniki, in our own generation, who was extremely erudite and sharp of mind, and who had an exceptional memory, besides being a distinguished physician, who went to Jerusalem in the waning years of his life and died there. My father once told me that he had heard people say that all this ability to memorize came to him because he had fed this drug called ''balador'' to one pullet hen, and straightaway he slaughtered it and ate it, and from that moment forward he was a man gifted with an exceptional memory and sharpness, and there was no mystery hidden from him."


References


Further reading

*Puri, H. S. (2003) RASAYAN: Ayurvedic Herbs for Longevity and Rejuvenation. Taylor & Francis, London. pages 74–79. *Wealth of India, Raw Materials. Vol IX, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, 1972 *Kleinsasser O., Tumors of the Larynx and Hypopharynx, Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, 1988. *Robin P.E., Reid A., Powell D.J. and McCnkey C.C., The Incidence of Cancer of the Larynx, Clinotolarygol, 1991, 16, 198–201. *Marck P.A. and Lupin A.J., Cancer of the Northern Alberta Experience, J otolaryngol, 1989, 18, 344–349. *Stephenson W.T., Barnes D.E., Holmes F.F. and Norris C.W, Gender Influences Subsite of Origin of Laryngeal Carcinoma, Arch otolaryngol head neck syrg., 1991, 117, 774–778. *Tuyns A.J., Laryngeal cancer, Cancer surv.,1994, 19–20, 159–173. *Martensson B., Epidermiological Aspects on Laryngeal Carcinoma in Scandina Via, Laryngoscope, 1975, 85, 1185–1189. *Yang P.C., Thomas D.B., Darling J.R. and Davis S., Differences in the Sex Ratio Of Laryngeal Cancer Incidence Rates By Anatomic Subsite, J clin epidemiol, 1989, 42, 755–758. *Kurup P.N., Ramdas V.N., Joshi P., In Handbook of Medicinal Plants, New Delhi, Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd, 1979, 32. *Raghunath S., Mitra R., In: Pharmacognosy of Indigenous Drugs, New Delhi, Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd, 1982,185. *Sharma A., Mathur R., Dixit V.P., Hypocholesterolemic Activity of Nutshell Extract of Semecarpus anacardium (Bhilawa) in Cholesterol Fed Rabbits, Ind J Expt Biol., 1995, 33, 444–8. *Freshney R.I., Culture of Animal Cells, A Manual of Basic Technique, 5th edition, Wiley-Liss, 200- 201. *Mohanta T.K., Patra J.K., Rath S.K., Pal D.K. and Thatoi H.N., Evaluation of Antimicrobial Activity and Phytochemical Screening of Oils and Nuts of Semicarpus Anacardium, Scientific Research and Essay, 2007, 11, 486–490. *Phillips H.J. and Terryberry J.E., Counting Actively Metabolizing Tissue Cultured Cells, Exp. Cell. Res., 1957, 13, 341–347. *Masters R.W., Animal Cell Culture, Third Edition, Cytotoxicity and Viability Assays. *Skehan P., Evaluation of Colorimetric Protein and Biomass Stains for Assaying Drug Effects Upon Human Tumor Cell Lines, Proc. Amer. Assoc. Cancer Res., 1989, 30, 2436 *Skehan P., New Colorimetric Cytotoxicity Assay for Anticancer-Drug Screening, Journal National Cancer Institute, 1990, 82, 1107–1112. *Masters R.W., Animal Cell Culture, Cytotoxicity and Viability Assays, Third Edition, 202–203. {{Taxonbar, from=Q1741720
anacardium ''Anacardium'', the cashews, are a genus of flowering plants in the family Anacardiaceae, native to tropical regions of the Americas. The best known species is ''Anacardium occidentale,'' which is commercially cultivated for its cashew nuts and c ...
Trees of the Indian subcontinent Trees of Myanmar Medicinal plants Plants described in 1782