Vegetable ivory or tagua nut is a product made from the very hard white

endosperm The endosperm is a tissue produced inside the seeds of most of the flowering plants following double fertilization. It is triploid (meaning three chromosome sets per nucleus) in most species, which may be auxin-driven. It surrounds the Embryo#Pla ...

of the seeds of certain palm trees. Vegetable ivory is named for its resemblance to animal ivory. Vegetable ivory is naturally white with a fine marbled grain structure. It can be dyed; dyeing often brings out the grain. It is still commonly used in buttons, jewelry, and artistic carving.

Location

Species in the genus ''

Phytelephas ''Phytelephas'' is a genus containing six known species of dioecious Arecaceae, palms (family (biology), family Arecaceae), occurring from southern Panama along the Andes to Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, northwestern Brazil, and Peru. They are com ...

'' (literally "elephant plant"), native to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, are the most important sources of vegetable ivory. The seeds of the Caroline ivory-nut palm from the

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the cen ...

, natangura palm from

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

and

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

, and the real fan palm, from

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

, are also used to produce vegetable ivory. A tagua palm can take up to 15 years to mature. But once it gets to this stage it can go on producing vegetable ivory for up to 100 years. In any given year a tagua palm can produce up to 20 pounds (about 9kg) of vegetable ivory.

Species

Some species from which vegetable ivory is harvested are: * '' Phytelephas macrocarpa'' (mainly in Peru and Bolivia) * '' Phytelephas aequatorialis'' (mainly in Ecuador) * '' Phytelephas seemannii'' (mainly in Colombia and Panama) * '' Phytelephas tenuicaulis''

Uses

An early use of vegetable ivory, attested from the 1880s, was the manufacture of

button A button is a fastener that joins two pieces of fabric together by slipping through a loop or by sliding through a buttonhole. In modern clothing and fashion design, buttons are commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, or ...

s. The material is called ''corozo'' or ''corosso'' when used in buttons.

Rochester, New York Rochester is a city in and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...

was a center of manufacturing where the buttons were "subjected to a treatment which is secret among the Rochester manufacturers", presumably improving their "beauty and wearing qualities". Before plastic became common in button production, about 20% of all buttons produced in the US were made of vegetable ivory. Vegetable ivory has been used extensively to make

dice A die (: dice, sometimes also used as ) is a small, throwable object with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. Dice are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, ro ...

knife A knife (: knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least Stone Age, 2.5 million years ago, as e ...

handles, and

chess piece A chess piece, or chessman, is a game piece that is placed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. It can be either White and Black in chess, white or black, and it can be one of six types: King (chess), king, Queen (chess), queen, Rook (ches ...

s. It is a very hard and dense material. Similar to stone, it is too hard to carve with a knife but instead requires

hacksaw A hacksaw is a fine-toothed saw, originally and mainly made for cutting metal. The equivalent saw for cutting wood is usually called a bow saw. Most hacksaws are hand saws with a C-shaped walking frame that holds a blade under tension. Suc ...

s and files. Many vegetable ivory buttons were decorated in a way that used the natural tagua nut colour as a contrast to the dyed surface, because the dye did not penetrate deeper than the first layer. This also helps identify the material.

References

{{Non-timber forest products, state=expanded Sculpture materials Ivory Handicrafts