Common name: Cuddepah almond

Cuddepah almond is a nut-producing Cashew (Anacardium occidentale) relative and timber tree occurring in seasonally dry forests in India and Southeast Asia, its natural range extending from the Western Himalayan foothills, south to Central and South India and east to Myanmar (Burma).

It is a small to medium-sized tree, typically 10 to 15 m (30 to 50 ft) tall, occasional up to 18 m (60 ft), with a straight, round trunk up to 48 cm (1.6 ft) in diameter and a much-branched, rounded crown of gently ascending branches. The bark is pale to dark grey, smooth on young trees, on older trees becoming rough and furrowed into squarish ridges.

The leaves are dull green, oblong or elliptical, 10 to 25 cm (4 to 10 in) long, smooth on the margins and leathery. They are crowded at the ends of the branches in an alternate arrangement and are evergreen or semi-evergreen, depending on the length of the dry season, with the branches left bare for around four to six weeks. The new leaves emerge at the transition from the dry to the rainy season and fill-out the branches again.

The flowers are small and insignificant, greenish-white, bisexual, with both female and male parts and held in branched, pyramidal-shaped clusters at the branch sides and ends. They come into bloom in the dry, winter season in its native range and are followed by small, green, egg-shaped fruit, 1 to 1.3 cm (0.4 to 0.5 in) in diameter. The fruit mature in the humid, summer season, becoming purple-black with a juicy, pleasantly sweet to sub-acid pulp surrounding a hard shell with a single, oily seed kernel inside.

Use

The fruit pulp is edible when ripe and is reportedly eaten by children. The seed kernel is more widely eaten and is a popular nut in India. It is sometimes eaten raw but is more commonly roasted and tastes somewhere between an almond and pistachio nut. An oil expressed from the kernel is substituted for almond oil in confectionery and medicinal preparations. The tree is not usually cultivated, with most of the harvest coming from wild trees that fruit irregularly and are low- to moderate-yielding.

The wood is light-weight, averaging out at around 400 to 500 kilograms per cubic meter, with low natural resistance to rot, decay and wood-boring insects. This classes it as a non-durable softwood, limiting its use outdoors. Logs are mostly sawn into planks used for making lightweight products, such as boxes and crates, or split into matchsticks.

Health use

The oil from the kernel is made into ointment used in traditional Indian (or Ayurvedic) medicine against itchy skin, prickly heat and to lighten skin blemishes. It is also used as a substitute for almond oil in medicinal preparations.

Climate

Grows naturally in sub-humid to moderately humid subtropical and tropical lowland to mid-elevation climates, generally in frost-free areas with annual lows of 14 to 23°C, annual highs of 26 to 35°C, annual rainfall of 800 to 2200 mm and a dry season of 5 to 8 months.

Growing

Although not usually cultivated, new plants can be grown from seed that remain viable for up to ten months, stored under cold, dry air-tight conditions. The hard shell is cracked and the seed extracted and dried under shade for around a day. They are then either stored away or pre-treated by soaking in cold water for five days or immersing them in boiled water that is left to cool overnight. Following pre-treatment, they are sown in seedling containers with a free-draining potting mix. Germination is usually within two to three weeks.

Performs best on free-draining clay and loam soils of a moderately acid to neutral nature, generally with a pH of 5.5 to 7.0, and on sites with full to partial sun exposure. It has poor tolerance to permanently wet or waterlogged soils.

Problem features

The seeds readily germinate from fallen fruit, which is how the tree normally regenerates in native forests. Its potential as a weed is unknown.

Books

• Dastur, J. F. 1964, Useful plants of India and Pakistan : a popular handbook of trees and plants of industrial, economic, and commercial utility, 2nd ed., D. B. Taraporevala Sons, Bombay

• Howes, F. N. 1949, Vegetable gums and resins, Chronica Botanica Company, Waltham, Massachusetts

• Janick, J., & Paull, R. E. 2008, The encyclopedia of fruit & nuts, CABI Publishing, Wallingford, Oxfordshire

• Luna, R. K 1996, Plantation trees, International Book Distributors, Dehradun, Uttarakhand

• Martin, F. M., et al. 1987, Perennial edible fruits of the tropics : an inventory, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, D.C.

• Menninger, E. A. 1977, Edible nuts of the world, Horticultural Books, Stuart, Florida

• Nussinovitch, A. 2010, Plant gum exudates of the world : sources, distribution, properties, and applications, CRC Press / Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, Florida

• Parrotta, J. A. 2001, Healing plants of peninsular India, CABI Publishing, Wallingford, Oxfordshire

• Reyes, G. 1992, Wood densities of tropical tree species, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Forest Experiment Station, New Orleans, Louisiana

• Rosengarten, F. 1984, The book of edible nuts, Walker and Company Publishing, New York

• Shiva, M.P., 1998. Inventory of Forest Resources for Sustainable Management & Biodiversity Conservation with Lists of Multipurpose Tree Species Yielding Both Timber & Non-timber Forest Products (NTFPs), and Shrub & Herb Species of NTFP Importance, Indus Publishing Company, New Delhi

• Troup, R.S. & Joshi, H. B. 1975 to 1981, Silviculture of Indian Trees (3 volumes), Government of India Publications, New Delhi