Earth-Nut

EARTH-NUT, the English name for Conopodium denuda tum, a member of the family Umbelliferae, which has a brown, tuber-like root-stock the size of a chestnut. It grows in woods and fields, has a slender, flexuous, smooth stem 2 to 3 ft. high, much-divided leaves, and small white flowers in many-rayed, ter minal, compound umbels. Though really excellent in taste and unobjectionable as food, it is disregarded in England by all but pigs and children. In Holland and elsewhere on the continent of Europe the rootstocks are generally eaten. The name is applied also to the fruit of Arachis hypogaea (family Leguminosae) which is also known as the pea-nut, ground-nut (q.v.) or monkey-nut.

Earth-nut Cake.

A useful feeding stuff made from the fruit of the earth-nut, which is also known as the monkey-nut or ground nut (Arachis hypogaea). The nuts are imported both in the decorticated and undecorticated form. In 1926, 101,985 tons were imported into Great Britain, valued at f 1,852,896. Expres sion yields a valuable oil, and the residue or cake makes an ex cellent digestible cattle-food of high protein content. The earth nut of commerce should be distinguished from the plant known by that name in England (Conopodium denudatum).