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Week ninety-eight: BONDUC (probability 16706), by David Sutton

Following our botanical excursion into fruit types last week I thought I'd continue the theme in less technical vein with some exotic words for particular seeds. The BONDUC is the round seed of the tropical leguminous tree Caesalpinia; it is also called NICKER or NICKAR and is used for playing marbles. The word is from the Arabic bonduq.

A CACOON is the large seed of a tropical climber of the mimosa family. A CAROB, also called locust bean, is the sweet-flavoured seed of a tropical evergreen tree. A TONKA bean (note that TONKA is adjectival, no -S) is the coumarin-scented seed of a tropical tree found in Guiana, and is used for flavouring; it is also known as COUMAROU.

JARINA is the hard seed of a certain palm tree. ACHIOTE is the seeds of the ANNATTO tree, or the colouring matter obtained from these. IGNATIA is a seed used in homeopathy, from a tree growing in China and the Philippines; the bad news is that it contains strychnine but the good news is that homeopathic remedies normally contain no trace of the homeopathic substance anyway.

And of course there are many compounds with SEED itself. LINSEED or LINTSEED is the seed of flax, also called FLAXSEED. MAWSEED the seed of the opium poppy. GRAPESEED is the seed of the vine. RAPESEED fairly obviously comes from rape and COTTONSEED from cotton; BENISEED, less obviously, is sesame seed, which also goes under the name of GINGELEY, GINGELI, GINGELLI, GINGELLY, GINGELY, GINGILI, GINGILLI or JINJILI.

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