Inside this ornamental container are Brazil nuts. There is no opening big enough for a nut to pass through. Do you wonder how they got into this container? It is an interesting story.
My friend and colleague Science Teacher Ellen showed me this artifact this morning. Her father as a young lad lived in South America and this was bought at a market there. The bowl is actually the outer layer of the seed pod of Brazil nuts. The nuts (which are actually seeds) grew in this and never had to be inserted into the container. If you think that is interesting, look what I learned from wikipedia about this most unusual tree:
In Brazil, it is illegal to cut down a Brazil nut tree. As a result, they can be found outside production areas, in the backyards of homes and near roads and streets. The fruit containing nuts are very heavy and rigid, and they pose a serious threat to vehicles and people passing under the tree. Brazil nuts sink in fresh water, which can cause clogging of waterways in riparian areas
Brazil nut trees produce fruit almost exclusively in pristine forests, as disturbed forests lack the large-bodied bees of the genera Bombus, Centris, Epicharis, Eulaema, and Xylocopa which are the only ones capable of pollinating the tree's flowers, with different bee genera being the primary pollinators in different areas, and different times of year. Brazil nuts have been harvested from plantations, but production is low and is currently not economically viable.
The fruit takes 14 months to mature after pollination of the flowers. The fruit itself is a large capsule 10–15 cm in diameter, resembling a coconut in size and weighing up to 2 kg. It has a hard, woody shell 8–12 mm thick, which contains eight to 24 triangular seeds 4–5 cm long (the "Brazil nuts") packed like the segments of an orange.
The capsule contains a small hole at one end, which enables large rodents like the agouti to gnaw it open. They then eat some of the seeds inside while burying others for later use; some of these are able to germinate into new Brazil nut trees. Most of the seeds are "planted" by the agoutis in shady places, and the young saplings may have to wait years, in a state of dormancy, for a tree to fall and sunlight to reach it, when it starts growing again.
Having read this, I find it miraculous that there are any Brazil nut trees around at all.
