Fisticke nut.—See [Pistacia nut].
[Fox nut.]—The seeds of a floating, annual aquatic plant, the Euryale ferox, native of India, and belonging to the water lily family (Nymphæaceæ). It is a handsome plant, with leaves about two feet in diameter, of a rich purple on the underside, with thorn-like spines on the veins. Flowers deep violet-red. The seeds of this species are eaten by the natives, the same as the aborigines of this country gathered the seeds of our indigenous Nelumbium luteum, under the name of water chinquapin, using them for food in the late fall and winter.
Ginkgo nut.—The large, round, white, somewhat flattened, nut-like seeds of the now common maidenhair tree, or Ginkgo biloba, also known as Salisburia adiantifolia of some nurserymen's catalogues and many recent botanical works. The former, however, is the older and correct scientific name. This tree is a native of China and Japan, and of a slender, sparsely branched habit, growing from fifty to eighty feet high in its native countries. It is a deciduous, cone-bearing (Coniferæ) tree, with two-lobed, fan-shaped leaves two to three inches broad, divided about halfway down from the top. The male and female flowers are on separate trees, and to secure seed or nuts both sexes must be grown near together. The ginkgo was introduced into European gardens in 1754, and there are now many fruiting specimens, especially in France, from whence the nuts have long been secured for planting, by nurserymen and others interested in tree culture. There are very few bearing trees in this country, and one in Washington, D. C., has been fruiting for a number of years. In China and Japan the seeds or nuts are valued for their edible qualities, but they have a kind of disagreeable, balsamic taste in their raw state, although this is dispelled by roasting, after which they are quite sweet and palatable. As the trees do not begin to bear until of considerable age, and the nuts are inferior to many other kinds, I do not think the ginkgo will ever become very popular in this country as a nut tree.
Goora nut.—See [Cola nut].
Gorgon nut.—See [Fox nut].
Groundnut.—The small, globular tubers of the dwarf three-leaved ginseng, Aralia trifolia, are called groundnuts in some of our Northern States, and they are frequently sought for, dug up and eaten by children, as I know from personal experience. The plant belongs to the ginseng family (Araliaceæ), and is closely related to the true five-leaved ginseng (Aralia quinquefolia), but our groundnut has only three leaves, instead of five; besides, it is a somewhat smaller plant, rarely more than six to eight inches high. When the scattered seed sprout in spring, they send down a long, slender, thread-like rootstock, to a depth of from four to six inches, and at the bottom of this the small tuber is produced. It has a somewhat pungent taste, but this only whets the appetite of a boy when on a hunt for ground nuts.
Groundnut.—The tubers of one of the most widely distributed climbing plants of the Eastern States, and common in low, wet grounds almost everywhere, from Canada to Florida, and westward to the Mississippi. This plant is described in most of the botanical works of the present day under the name of Apios tuberosa, and it belongs to the Pulse family (Leguminosæ), and is closely related to the common and well-known wistarias, although much smaller and of a more slender habit. It is a smooth, perennial, twining vine, with pinnate leaves, and dense racemes or clusters of small brownish-purple pea-shaped flowers. The subterranean rootstocks bear long strings of edible tubers, from one to two inches long, and from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, somewhat variable in shape, dark brown on the outside, but white within. When boiled or roasted these tubers have a rich, farinaceous, nutty flavor. This tuber or groundnut is the one described by Mr. Thomas Herriot, the historiographer of Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition to Virginia in 1585, under the Indian name of "Openawk." He says: "These roots are round, some as large as walnuts, others much larger; they grow in damp soil, many hanging together, as fixed on ropes; they are good food, either boiled or roasted." These tubers are to be found in the swamps and damp soils of Virginia at this day, just as they were at the time of Herriot's visit, but many modern historians have tried to make out that Raleigh's colonists found our common potato among the Indians at that time, although I have never been able to find a scrap of trustworthy history to support such a claim, or that Raleigh himself ever planted or cultivated the American potato in Ireland or England, or, in fact, ever tasted one of these tubers.
Groundnut.—See [Peanut or Goober].
Hazelnut, or Chile hazel.—This is merely a local English name for the fruit of a small evergreen tree, native of Chile, S. A., where it is known as Guevina, and this has been adopted as the name of the genus, adding the specific name of the European hazel, so we have Guevina Avellana, although in some botanical works it may be found under the name of Qudria heterophylla. It belongs to the Protea family (Proteaceæ). It has white, hermaphrodite flowers, in long axillary racemes; these are succeeded by coral-red fruit about the size of a large cherry; the stone or nut-like seeds being edible are largely used by the Chileans. They are said to taste like the hazel, hence the name. Trees are hardy in the southwest of England, and would probably succeed here in the Southern States. It has been planted and found to thrive in California. Readily propagated from seed or green cuttings under glass.
[Horse-chestnut.]—The fruit of a genus of deciduous ornamental trees and shrubs, native of Asia and North America. The common horse-chestnut, or Æsculus Hippocastanum, is a native of Asia, and was introduced into Europe over three hundred years ago, its large, smooth seeds and prickly husks probably suggesting both its common and scientific names, although these trees do not even belong to the same order as the true edible chestnuts (Castanea), but to the soapworts (Sapindaceæ). It is supposed that the prefix, "horse," was derived from a custom among the Turks, of giving the nuts to horses as a medicine when these animals were afflicted with a cough or inclined to become wind-broken. In southern Europe they are sometimes fed to cows to increase the flow of milk, and at one time they were employed for making paste for book binders. They are scarcely edible, although containing considerable farinaceous matter, owing to the presence of a bitter narcotic principle. Our native species, better known as Buckeyes, with both smooth and prickly fruit, are equally worthless as food.