{"id":4699,"date":"2017-12-17T21:49:48","date_gmt":"2017-12-17T21:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reading.ac.uk\/crg\/?p=4699"},"modified":"2017-12-17T21:49:48","modified_gmt":"2017-12-17T21:49:48","slug":"tough-nut-to-crack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/herbarium\/2017\/12\/17\/tough-nut-to-crack\/","title":{"rendered":"#AdventBotany Day 17: A tough nut to crack!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alastair Culham<\/a><\/h1>\n
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A single tree of the brazil nut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Filling your lap with the sharp fragments of nut shells as you work through a bowl of shell-on nuts is one of the pleasures of Christmas.\u00a0 Less fun is later treading on the sharp\u00a0 fragments that have pinged across the room unnoticed.\u00a0 The, sometimes, superhuman effort of cracking open the nuts is a sure sign the plant didn’t really want you to eat them.\u00a0 One of the most challenging nuts to crack is the Brazil with it’s tough shell and almost no air space inside to allow movement.<\/p>\n

Brazil nuts were the most exotic of the standard selection of mixed nhttp:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/uk\/4065611.stmuts seen for sale each Christmas in the UK. Hazel, walnuts and almonds can all be grown in the UK and around much of the rest of Europe however the Brazil nut really does come from Brazil and it has a fascinating biological story. The pecan has now replaced the brazil as the exotic nut of choice for a standard supermarket bag of mixed nuts due to fear of aflatoxins<\/a> in the shell-on nuts but this is a poor second choice in my opinion. Shelled brazils are still readily available.<\/p>\n

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Brazil nuts used in teaching at UoR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The shape of a brazil nut brings to mind two adhering segments of chocolate orange and there is good reason for this.\u00a0 The individual brazil is one of many segments formed inside a hard outer case.<\/p>\n

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Shelled brazils<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To botanists the brazil is known as Bertholletia excelsa,<\/em> a large tree (to 50m) naturally occurring in rainforest throughout Brazil, the Guianas and Venezuela, and in eastern Bolivia, Colombia and Peru.\u00a0 It is an offence to fell brazil trees in Brazil due to their importance and the lack of ways to artificially propagate them. One of the fascinating interactions of the brazil is that with the Agouti which can chew through the hard shell of the fruit to release the seeds inside.\u00a0 This is captured beautifully in a extract from The Private Life of Plants featuring David Attenborough, a series I was lucky enough to be involved with.<\/p>\n