TALLOW NUT.--A local and nearly obsolete name for the fruit of the Ogeechee lime or sour gum tree (_Nyssa capitata_) of the swamps of Florida, Georgia and westward. The fruit is about an inch long, resembling a small plum, the pulp having an agreeable acid taste. Bartram, p. 94, refers to this fruit under the name of "Tallow nut," but why so called is not explained. TALLOW NUT.--The fruit of the Chinese Tallow tree, _Stillingia sebifera_, of the spurgewort family (_Euphorbiaceæ_), a native of China, where it is, as well as in some of the warmer parts of America, extensively cultivated. It has been planted in a few localities in the Southern States, and appears to thrive. It is a small tree thirty to forty feet high, with rhomboid tapering leaves and a three-celled capsuled fruit, each cell containing only a single seed thickly coated with a yellow, tallow-like substance, hence its common name. This tallow or grease is used for making soap, burning in lamps, and also for dressing cloth. TEMPERANCE NUT.--An English name of cola nut. TORREY NUT.--The hard, nut-like seeds of _Torreya nucifera_, of Siebold, or _Taxus nucifera_, of Kæmpfer, and _Caryotaxus nucifera_, of Zuccarini, a tree native of Japan, where these nuts are eaten by the Japanese, either raw or roasted. An oil is also extracted from the nuts, for use in cooking or for burning in lamps. This Japanese tree belongs to the same genus as the so-called California nutmeg (see Nutmeg) and our Florida stinking cedar (_T. taxifolia_), also the great Chinese cedar (_T. grandis_). [Illustration: FIG. 107. WATER CHESTNUT.] WATER CHESTNUT.--Also known as water caltrops. The seeds of several species of water plants of the genus _Trapa_, of the evening primrose family (_Onagraceæ_). In southern Europe and eastward there is a species found in ponds, the seeds of which are called Jesuit chestnuts (_T. natans_), and in India and Ceylon a closely allied one, the Singhara-nut plant (_T. bispinosa_), while in Lago Maggiore there is another (_T. verbanensis_), but all may be varieties of one and the same species, including the _Trapa bicornis_, a two-horned water chestnut, extensively used in China and Japan as food under various local names. In China they are called Ling, and of late years have been occasionally imported and sold, more as curiosities than for eating. These seeds or nuts are of a dark brown color, and of the form and size shown in Fig. 107, resembling, in miniature, the skull of an ox with abbreviated horns. When fresh, the kernel is of an agreeable nutty flavor. WATER CHESTNUT, OR CHINQUAPIN.--The seeds of the large yellow water lily (_Nelumbium luteum_), a very common plant in small ponds in the West and South, but more rare in the East. The seeds are about the size and shape of small acorns, and produced in a large, top-shaped, fleshy receptacle. They are edible, and are supposed to have been extensively used as food by the aborigines of this country. INDEX.