ABSTRACT

This chapter provides information on the uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecology, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of Sapucaia. Sapucaia nuts and paradise nuts are almost contradictory terms, paradise implying a good exotic flavor, and sapucaia because, according to one interpretation, the nuts were fed to chickens by Amazonian Indians. The oil is regarded as antipodriagic and cardiotonic. Water preserved in the fruits for 24 hr is said to remove skin blemishes. Sapucaia and closely related species, show a rather general lack of tolerance to environmental extremes. Such narrow tolerances seem to be characteristics of rainforest species. Mori and Prance found that the carpenter bee, Xylocopa frontalis, is a regular visitor to the flowers. It transports two types of pollen from the flower, viable pollen from the staminal ring and nonviable pollen from the hood of the flowers.