Candlenut

Overview

Candlenut, is native to the Indo-Malaya region, is widely cultivated in tropical areas, both as an ornamental plant and for the oil that is obtained from the seed. Some caution needs to be employed when using this plant since there are also reports of toxicity (Candle nuts are toxic when eaten raw). It is one of the great domesticated trees of the world, having a wide range of uses and has been adopted as the official tree emblem of Hawaii, where it was probably imported by Polynesian ancestors.

Vernacular Names

Shi li (Chinese), Bankoelnoot (Dutch), Kerzennussbaum (German), Bancoulier (French), Kukui nattsu (Japanese), Lumbang (Philippines), Kuikui (Hawaiian).

Agroecology

It thrives in moist tropical regions (from subtropical dry to wet, through tropical very dry to wet forest life zones), grows best at altitudes below 1,200 m, with a mean annual temperature of 18-28 °C, and a mean annual rainfall of 650-4,300 mm. Once fully grown, it tolerates drought reasonably well. Requires a sunny position, succeeds in a wide range of soils so long as they are well-drained, and prefers a pH in the range of 5-8.

Morphology

• Barks - grey, rather rough with lenticels; crown heavy, irregular, appearing whitish or frosted from a distance due to a cover of white stellate hairs especially on young parts.
• Leaves - alternate, simple, stipules small, early caducous; petiole up to 30 cm long, margins entire or slightly sinuate, dark green with a silvery gloss, pinnately veined.
• Flowers - white, unisexual, female flowers terminating the ultimate branchlets of the cymes, male flowers much more numerous, smaller, arranged around the female flowers in bunches; calyx 2–3-lobed at anthesis, stellate hairy; petals 5, lanceolate.
• Fruits - a drupe, laterally compressed, ovoidglobose and with 2 stones or semiglobose and with 1 stone, 5–6 cm × 4–7 cm, stellate hairy, indehiscent, olive-green with whitish flesh; endocarp thick, bony, rough.
• Seeds - compressed-globose, up to 3×3 cm, endosperm thick, rich in oil.

Cultivation

Propagated by seeds, cutting or marcotting.

Chemical Constituents

Acrid resin (a purgative principle), essential fatty acids (linoleic and linolenic acids), sterols, flavonoids, triterpenes, phenolics, polyprenols, triglycerides, tannin.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

• Studies have shown anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-pyretic, hypolipidemic, anti-termite, cytotoxic, wound healing, anti-hypersensitivity properties.
• Seed is used as a laxative, stimulant and sudorific.
• The oil is purgative.
• Bark is used to treat wounds, tumours, bloody diarrhoea and dysentery, secondary amenorrhoea; thrush, sore throat, tonsillitis (by gargling with bark infusion). Bark juice/bark sap is used for treating sprue.
• The pulped kernels are used in poultices to treat headache, fevers, ulcers, swollen joints and constipation.
• Oil is used to make a massage oil for a certain kind of headache (possibly caused by meningitis), has also been used as a remedy for worms and piles.
• Leaves are used to treat constipation, food poisoning, coughs, diarrhoea, pains in the chest, hernia, headaches and gonorrhoea. An infusion of the leaves is used as a lotion or is ingested for mouth infections of infants.
• Flowers and the sap at the top of the husk is used to treat oral candidiasis in children.