Nickernut
Encyclopedia
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
s from tropical leguminous
Fabaceae
The Fabaceae or Leguminosae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, is a large and economically important family of flowering plants. The group is the third largest land plant family, behind only the Orchidaceae and Asteraceae, with 730 genera and over 19,400 species...
shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
s, particularly Caesalpinia bonduc
Caesalpinia bonduc
Caesalpinia bonduc, commonly known as Gray Nicker, is a species of flowering plant in the pea family, Fabaceae, that has a pantropical distribution. It is a vine-like shrub that reaches a length of and scrambles over other vegetation. Stems are covered in curved spines...
and C. major, both known by the common name warri tree. C. bonduc produces gray nickernuts, and C. major produces yellow. Accordingly, these species are locally known in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
as "grey nickers" and "yellow nickers".
The word nicker probably derives from the Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
word "knikker", meaning clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
.
In the Caribbean, nickernuts are used to play mancala
Mancala
Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called "sowing" games, or "count-and-capture" games, which describes the game-play. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West, or the game of Go in Eastern Asia...
games such as oware
Oware
Oware is an abstract strategy game of Akan origin. Part of the mancala family, it is played throughout West Africa and the Caribbean. Among its many names are Ayò , Awalé , Wari , Ouri, Ouril or Uril , Warri , Adji , and Awélé...
. The nickernut is marble-like and good for other uses, such as for jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...
; it is also sometimes ground up to make a medicinal tea.
The seeds are often found on the beach, and are also known as sea pearls or eaglestones.
Caesalpinia and Merremia seeds sometimes drift long distances. In 1693 James Wallace
James Wallace (minister)
-Life:He studied at the University of Aberdeen, where he graduated M.A. on 27 April 1659. He was shortly afterwards appointed minister of Ladykirk in Orkney. From there he was translated to Kirkwall in 1672. On 16 October 1678 he was also collated by Bishop Mackenzie to the prebend of St...
referred to them being often found in Orkney: "After Storms of Westerly Wind amongst the Sea-weed, they find commonly in places expos'd to the Western-Ocean these Phaseoli . . . . [F]rom the West-Indies, where they commonly grow, they may be thrown in on Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, the Western parts of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and Orkney". In 1751 Erich Pontoppidan described one found on the coast of Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
: "It is of the size of a chestnut, obicular, yet flat, or as it were compressed on both sides. Its colour is a dark brown yet in the middle, at the junction of the shells, it is varied with a circle of shining-black, and close by that another of a lively red, which have a very pretty effect". They were known as 'sea beans' in Scandinavia, where one has been found fossilised in a Swedish bog, and 'Molucca beans' in the Hebrides
Hebrides
The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
, where a visitor to Islay
Islay
-Prehistory:The earliest settlers on Islay were nomadic hunter-gatherers who arrived during the Mesolithic period after the retreat of the Pleistocene ice caps. In 1993 a flint arrowhead was found in a field near Bridgend dating from 10,800 BC, the earliest evidence of a human presence found so far...
in 1772 wrote of them as seeds of "Dolichos wrens, Guilamdina Bonduc, G. Bonducetta, and mimosa scandens . . . natives of Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
". The 1797 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica said that they were used only for "the making of snuff-boxes out of them"; however, there is a long tradition of using them as amulets for good luck, banishment of ill luck or to ease childbirth.
Sources
- E. Charles Nelson and P. H. Oswald. Ed. Wendy Walsh. Sea Beans and Nickar Nuts: A Handbook of Exotic Seeds and Fruits Stranded on Beaches in North-Western Europe. Botanical Society of the British Isles, 2000. B.S.B.I. Handbooks for Physical Identification 10. ISBN 0901158291