ONES THAT “GROW ON TREES”

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 54, 25 November 1946, Page 2

ONES THAT “GROW ON TREES”

PRODUCTION OF BUTTONS

“VEGETABLE IVORY”

One of the less obvious places to look for button material would be up. a palm tree. But there is a very good possibility that you may have worn many coat buttons made from “vegetable ivory”—that is, from nuts that grow on the tropical tagua palm.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, tagua palms may be found from Peru to Panama. Tagua nuts rank about fifth among the exports of Ecuador, with the United States the principal buyer.

Tagua nuts are contained in bur clusters which somewhat resemble clusters- of chestnut burs, except that the palm bur clusters may be a foot in diameter and weigh up to 30 pounds. Each section or carpel of the cluster contains 4 to 6 nuts about the size of hen’s eggs. Native labourers cut down the clusters with machetes, break the burs open, and put the nuts in baskets or sacks to be carried by mules or on the labourers’ backs to the shack or hacienda from which they are working. When an adequate supply of nuts has been collected they are sacked in burlap and taken to trading centres. The trader, in turn, sends the nuts to export centres, where they are bought by exporters or processors. The principal export centres of Ecuador are' Guayaquil, Bahia, and Manta. Some of the nuts are used locally, but most of the tagua crop is exported. For making into buttons, the nuts are sawed into flat slices. The slices are then sorted for size by running through a long cylinder with holes of various sizes. The slices are then sacked by sizes and are ’ready to be coloured and shaped into buttons.

It is curious to note that about a century ago Tagua nuts were shipped to Europe, as a . substitute for African elephant ivory.