Tahitian Chestnut

Inocarpus fagifer, the Tahitian chestnut or Polynesian chestnut, is a medium-sized evergreen tree in the legume family, with a wide range in the tropics of the south-west Pacific and south-east Asia. The peoples of Polynesia and Melanesia have long used almost every part of it. The kernels are the main product, and are cooked and often mashed into a pudding; the timber is carved and used for canoes and light construction. In Fiji the ivi leaves thatch houses, and the leaves and bark appear in herbal medicine. The raw seed is toxic and is eaten only after cooking. Folklore includes a Samoan belief that humans originated from the tree, a Vanuatu story that the first woman was a man changed by hot leaves, and Fijian stories of a submerged island named for a large ivi tree.