HORSE-CHESTNUT.--The fruit of a genus of deciduous ornamental trees and shrubs, native of Asia and North America. The common horse-chestnut, or _Æsculus Hippocastanum_, is a native of Asia, and was introduced into Europe over three hundred years ago, its large, smooth seeds and prickly husks probably suggesting both its common and scientific names, although these trees do not even belong to the same order as the true edible chestnuts (_Castanea_), but to the soapworts (_Sapindaceæ_). It is supposed that the prefix, "horse," was derived from a custom among the Turks, of giving the nuts to horses as a medicine when these animals were afflicted with a cough or inclined to become wind-broken. In southern Europe they are sometimes fed to cows to increase the flow of milk, and at one time they were employed for making paste for book binders. They are scarcely edible, although containing considerable farinaceous matter, owing to the presence of a bitter narcotic principle. Our native species, better known as Buckeyes, with both smooth and prickly fruit, are equally worthless as food. IVORY NUT.--There are two species of palms producing nuts hard enough to be employed as a substitute for ivory, in the manufacture of small articles of domestic use. But the one best known to commerce under the name of ivory nut is the fruit of _Phytelephas macrocarpa_, native of New Granada and other parts of Central America. This palm is a low-growing and almost decumbent species, the stem seldom more than six to eight inches in diameter; but the leaves are of immense length, or from fifteen to twenty feet, growing in bundles, or clusters. The fruit consists of about forty nuts, enclosed in a rough, spiny husk, of a globular form, produced on a short footstalk growing from the axis of the leaves, the whole bunch weighing from twenty to thirty pounds. They are two inches long, slightly triangular, and covered with a thin, pulpy coat, which becomes dry, papery and brittle when thoroughly dried, but when in its green state it is sometimes utilized by the natives for making a favorite beverage. The ripe nuts are very solid, hard, and when polished resemble ivory. Immense quantities of these nuts are imported into this country, as well as Europe, and used as a substitute for bone and ivory for making buttons, toys, and similar small articles. JESUIT CHESTNUT.--See Water chestnut. JICARA NUT.--A local name, in some of the Central American States for the Calabash (_Crescentia Cujete_). A low-growing, rather rough tree, with simple leaves, usually three growing together on a broad leafstalk. The fruit is extremely variable, both in size and form, but mainly globose, and two to four inches in diameter. The shell is very hard, and largely used for drinking cups, and these are sometimes highly ornamented on the outside. The kernel is scarcely edible, but is used by the natives as a medicine. JUBA NUT.--See Coquito nut. JUVIA NUT.--See Brazil nut.