{"id":616,"date":"2014-01-10T16:36:30","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T21:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nybg.org\/science-talk\/?p=616"},"modified":"2014-01-10T16:51:31","modified_gmt":"2014-01-10T21:51:31","slug":"brazil-nuts-from-the-flower-to-your-party-mix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/01\/brazil-nuts-from-the-flower-to-your-party-mix\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil Nuts: From the Flower to Your Party Mix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rog\u00e9rio Gribel, Ph.D., is the Director of Scientific Research at the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden<\/a> in Brazil, and Scott A. Mori, Ph.D.<\/a>, is the Nathaniel Lord Britton Curator of Botany at The New York Botanical Garden<\/a>. They have studied all aspects of Brazil nut classification, ecology, evolution, and conservation for most of their careers.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Rogerio\"<\/a>
Left: Rog\u00e9rio Gribel standing next to a gigantic Brazil nut tree. Right: a carpenter bee entering a Brazil nut tree flower in search of its nectar reward.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s a\u00a0video that\u00a0shows how essential big, strong bees are for the production of the largest “nut” found in a can of mixed party nuts.\u00a0It shows a carpenter bee (Xylocopa frontalis<\/em>) pollinating the flowers of a\u00a0Brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa<\/em>).<\/p>\n

We say “nut”\u00a0because\u00a0Brazil nuts are seeds, not nuts<\/a>, a kind of fruit structurally similar to an acorn. The Brazil nuts we eat at parties are produced in a woody fruit that looks like a cannonball, so, to be botanically correct, Brazil nuts should be called Brazil seeds. But we don’t expect that to happen anytime soon!
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\nThe flowers of this Amazonian tree\u00a0are relatively large, usually reaching three to four centimeters\u2014or nearly two inches\u2014in diameter. The petals and male part of the flower are cream-colored with a conspicuous patch of yellow at the entrance into the flower. The male part of the flower has\u00a0an elongated extension, called the ligule, stretching from one side of a ring of fertile stamens and\u00a0curving over the top of the ovary. No other plant apart from\u00a0the Brazil nut family possesses a similar structure.<\/p>\n