They are both being eliminated from the face of the earth at an alarming rate. During the past three decades, poachers in search of ivory tusks have decimated large populations of African elephants, some by as much as 50 percent. Bans on international trade of elephant ivory have discouraged the slaughter of elephants, but the demand for polished ivory has pushed the world’s largest living land animal to the brink of extinction. Across the Atlantic Ocean, in a land that was once connected to the African continent, another kind of massacre is happening to the rain forest.
In Central and South America this destruction amounts to about 50 acres per minute, an area roughly the size of West Virginia each year. Slash and burn agriculture is directly responsible for the extermination of hundreds of plant and animal species each year, largely for plantations of exportable products such as fast-growing pines, rubber, bananas, coffee and cattle. However, there is a glimmer of hope in this modern day battlefield of people against nature: A lovely Amazonian palm might help to save its rain forest relatives and the African elephant.
Several tropical American palms are known to produce vegetable ivory, but one of the most important is Phytelephas aequatorialis, also known as the ivory-nut palm.
The generic name Phytelephas literally means “elephant plant.” It is derived from the Greek words phyton (plant) and elephas (elephant). The specific epithet aequatorialis refers to the equatorial region where this palm is native. Another name used by some authors is P. macrocarpa, in which the specific epithet macrocarpa refers to the large fruits bearing ivorylike nuts. Ivory-nut palms have an extensive distribution along banks of tropical American rivers, from Panama and Colombia to Peru. They are most abundant in the Amazon Basin of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. The WAYNE’S WORD staff has seen this remarkable palm in Ecuador along the beautiful Napo River, a tributary of the Amazon.
Other Vegetable Ivory Palms
There are several other palm species from distant rain forests with large, extremely hard seeds that are also used for vegetable eco ivory. The Caroline ivory-nut palm (Metroxylon amicorum) is native to the Caroline Islands of Micronesia. The unusual one-seeded fruits are covered with numerous shiny brown scales and superficially resemble a closed pine cone. Another source of vegetable ivory is Hyphaene ventricosa, a beautiful African palm native to islands and banks of the Zambezi River in the vicinity of Victoria Falls. Although the seeds are smaller than the Caroline ivory-nut palm, the bony endosperm is just as hard. The fruits of Hyphaene palms contain a sweet, juicy outer pulp that tastes like gingerbread and is the source of the name, gingerbread palms. Unlike most other palms, they have an unusual branching growth habit resulting in forked trunks.
Another ecological incentive for using vegetable ivory is that renewed trade in tagua nuts could help protect endangered rain forests in Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. According to a Massachusetts-based environmental group called Cultural Survival, natural rain forest products such as vegetable ivory can generate up to five times the income of banana plantations and cattle ranches.
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