Tagua - The Elephant Plant

The tagua nut, pronounced (tah-gwa), is the seed of a species of palm which grows in northern South America, primarily in Ecuador and more recently Columbia. The individual nut is covered with a mud brown skin and ranges in size from the size of a chestnut to that of a hens egg.

It's greek scientific name (Phytelephas) means "Plant Elephant".  It is so named because it's endosperm (the hard white seed) resembles elephant ivory visually and texturally. Although it is a natural ivory, in that it is a natural product, the term "natural ivory" is reserved for elephant ivory. The tagua nut is instead known as vegetable ivory.

Tens of tons of the dried nuts are exported worldwide as an ivory substitute, providing much needed employment for thousands of Ecuadorians.

This versatile material can be worked in many ways: It can be polished, carved or dyed to produce such products as high fashion buttons, chess sets, dice, dominoes, carved animals, fish and birds. The nuts are also sought after by hobbyist and craftspeople and since tagua is a nut, the left over scrap can be ground up and fed to live stock as fodder.

This amazing palm can produce the equivalent of one elephant tusk a year, year after year and no elephant dies in the process. It doesn't get much better than that.