Cashews

I remember the first time I encountered a cashew tree, when I was living in Guatemala in the 1970s. We were on the coast, near a beach, and I recall the very pungent, even stinky, smell. I asked about it (with a good deal of distain), and was told with indignance that what I was smelling was actually a "delicious" fruit that bore the equally delicious cashew nut.

Although I continue always and ever to disagree on how anything that smells that awful should ever, or shall ever, go in my mouth, I do love the nuts it produces.

Most of us are unaware of how a cashew grows. I ran across this photos a few months ago, and wanted to share it, and what Wikipedia has to say about it. This is what I found:

Cashew is a tropical evergreen tree native to South America. It belongs to the Anacardiaceae family, which includes about 60 genera and 400 species. The tree can grow rapidly up to 20 m, but usually reaches 8-12 m height. It produces cashew nuts and cashew apples, an accessory fruit. The tree has green, elliptical, leathery leaves that are spirally arranged on the branches. It produces flowers arranged in multi-branched inflorescence called panicle. Cashew trees usually take about 36 months to bear fruit and have a fruitful life of about 3 decades. 

Interestingly, the article does not mention how awful the fruit smells! LOL...