Aleurites moluccana

Aleurites moluccana

Plant | Aleurites moluccana | Aleurites moluccana, the Candlenut, is a flowering tree in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, also known as Candleberry, Indian walnut, Kemiri, Varnish tree, Nuez de la India, Kukui nut tree.

Its native range is impossible to establish precisely because of early spread by humans, and the tree is now distributed throughout the New and Old World tropics. It grows to a height of 15–25 m (49–82 ft), with wide spreading or pendulous branches. The leaves are pale green, simple and ovate, or trilobed or rarely 5-lobed, with an acute apex, 10–20 cm (3.9–7.9 in) long. The nut is round, 4–6 cm (1.6–2.4 in) in diameter; the seed inside has a very hard seed coat and a high oil content, which allows its use as a candle (see below), hence its name.

Aleurites moluccana

Common names
(Creole) : alèrit, nwa, nwazèt
(English) : belgian walnut, candle nut oil tree, candleberry, candle-nut tree, Indian walnut, varnish tree
(French) : aleurites, noisette, noix, noyer, noyer des Indes
(German) : Kerzennussbaum, Lichtnussbaum
(Hawaian) : kukui
(Indonesian) : kamiri
(Luganda) : kabakanjagala
(Portuguese) : calumbàn, noz da India
(Spanish) : arbol llorón, avellano, avellano criollo, nogal de la India, nuez
(Trade name) : tung

Products
Food: Kernels when roasted and cooked are considered edible; may be strung as candle nuts. After removing the hard outer coat, the seed is pounded and eaten as a sauce. Per 100 g, the seed is reported to contain 626 calories, 63 g fat, 19 g protein, 8 g total carbohydrate, 7 g water, 3 g ash, 200 mg phosphorus, 80 mg calcium, 2 mg iron, and 0.06 mg thiamine. Fuel: Seed oil is suitable, with modification, for use as a substitute for diesel, the residues for conversion to alcohol or pyrolysis. In Uganda, it is planted as a backyard tree for firewood. Timber: Wood whitish and soft and suitable as a timber species. Tannin or dyestuff: Bark contains about 4–6% tannin. Lipids: Seed yields 57-80% of inedible, semi-drying oil, liquid at ordinary temperatures, solidifying at -15 deg. C, containing oleostearic acid. The oil, quicker drying than linseed oil, is used as a wood preservative, for varnishes and paint oils, as an illuminant, for soap making, waterproofing paper, rubber substitutes and insulating material. Oil is painted on bottoms of small crafts to protect against marine borers; also prevents feeding by striped cucumber beetle. The oil is inferior to tung oil, extracted from a related Chinese species, A. fordii, and used mainly for varnishing wood. Commercial production of oil yields 12-18% of the weight of the dry, unhulled fruits, the fruits being air-dried to about 12-15% mc before pressing. Oil yields as high as 300 kg/ha have been reported. Poison: Seeds are moderately poisonous. The oil cake, containing about 46% protein, is said to be poisonous. Medicine: Bark used to treat tumours in Japan. The oil is purgative and sometimes used like castor oil. Kernels are laxative, a stimulant and a sudorific. The irritant oil is rubbed on scalp as a hair stimulant. In Malaya, the pulped kernel is used in poultices for headache, fevers, ulcers and swollen joints. In Java, the bark is used for bloody diarrhoea or dysentery. Bark juice with coconut milk is used for sprue. Malayans apply boiled leaves to the body for headaches and gonorrhoea.

Aleurites moluccana

The nut is often used cooked in Indonesian and Malaysian cuisine, where it is called kemiri in Indonesian or buah keras in Malay. On the island of Java in Indonesia, it is used to make a thick sauce that is eaten with vegetables and rice. In the Philippines, the fruit and tree are traditionally known as Lumbang after which Lumban, a lakeshore town in Laguna is named although the name Jatropha has since gained more popularity. Outside of Southeast Asia, macadamia nuts are sometimes substituted for candlenuts when they are not available, as they have a similarly high oil content and texture when pounded. The flavor, however, is quite different, as the candlenut is much more bitter. A Hawaiian condiment known as ʻInamona is made from roasted kukui (candlenuts) mixed into a paste with salt. ʻInamona is a key ingredient in traditional Hawaiian poke.

Aleurites moluccana

In Ancient Hawaiʻi, kukui nuts were burned to provide light. The nuts were strung in a row on a palm leaf midrib, lit one end, and burned one by one every 15 minutes or so. This led to their use as a measure of time. One could instruct someone to return home before the second nut burned out. Hawaiians also extracted the oil from the nut and burned it in a stone oil lamp called a kukui hele po (light, darkness goes) with a wick made of kapa cloth.

In Tonga, even today, ripe nuts, named tuitui are pounded into a paste, tukilamulamu, and used as soap or shampoo. As recently as 1993, candlenuts were chewed into sweet-scented emollient utilized during a traditional funerary ritual in the outlying islands of the Kingdom of Tonga. Their scent was also used for making various sweet smelling oils for the skin.