An Alternative African Source Of Vegetable Ivory

(Wahroongai News, Volume 30, No.7, July 1996) Grahame Brown writes:

Vegetable ivory, a long used effective imitation for elephant ivory, is derived from the dried nuts of several species of palm tree. The common commercial source of vegetable ivory is the Corozo or Tagua palm (Phytelephas macrocarpa) from Central America and northern South America. This ivory colored vegetable material (nut) has a hardness of 2½, a specific gravity of 1.40 – 1.43, a spot refractive index of 1.54, and in hand specimen displays the polygonal outlines of its component plant cells.

Another source of African vegetable ivory was suggested by Webster to be the Doum or Gingerbread palm (Hyphaene thebaica) of north and central Africa. According to the 5th edition of Webster’s Gems, the rounded nuts of this palm have a reddish brown skin, and edible underlying spongy layer which is commonly converted into an alcoholic beverage, and a hard inner seed (the source of vegetable ivory).

A recent purchased guide, The Shell Field Guide to the Common Trees of the Okavango Delta and the Moremi Game Reserve, by Veronica Roodt, has provided some additional details about the African source of vegetable ivory.

According to Dr Roodt, the source of vegetable ivory in the Okavango Delta—a wildlife and vegetation-rich area of 18000 km² that is the terminus of the Cubango River in Botswana—is the Real Fan Palm (Hyphanae petersania). This majestic tree grows to a height of 20m, and has a bare stem crowned by arched fan-shaped green leaves.

The tennis ball sized fruits of this palm take 2 years to mature, and up to 2 years to fall. Consequently, this palm is decorated with fruit throughout the year. The nuts of the Real Fan Palm yield a whitish milk, that resembles and tastes like coconut milk, once the hard exocarp of the nut has been fractured. The external pulp of the nut is edible, and tastes like gingerbread. It may be fermented into a very potent palm wine. The hard, hollow internal endosperm of the nut is the source of vegetable ivory.

Elephants play a major role in the dispersion of the seeds of this palm, for elephants love the taste of these nuts. The endosperm (vegetable ivory) passes through the elephant’s digestive tract unscathed and may be collected from the animal’s faeces (as large brownish furry tennis balls). If the nuts are not harvested, the faeces act as a natural fertilizer to hasten the germination of seeds.

So, there you have it; an African source of vegetable ivory confirmed, and correctly assigned to source.