Coquilla Palm or vegetable ivory
A coquilla nut is the Brazilain term for the fruit of a feather-leaved palm tree, Phytelephas, which flourishes in tropical rain forests along the Amazon River from Paraguay to Panama. Many people call them vegetable ivory due to it’s similarity in texture and look to elephant ivory. We get our nuts from Brazil. Some people also call cohune and the soft form is used in soap and in similar uses as cocout oil.
Phytelephas is a plant genus with 6 species of palm in it. They are commonly known in other countries as ivory palms, vegetable ivory palms, ivory-nut palms or tagua/tawa palms. Their name means plant elephant. These trees reach up to 20 meters. The nut is covered by a pericarp that gets removed naturally by animals. The outside of the kernel has a brown flaky skin and is shaped like a mini avocado that will measure 4-8 cm in diameter.
Natives replant palm trees for their seeds instead of logging them, which saves a bit of the rain forests. Just think: an object much like a gem with all the qualities of ivory, but without harming wildlife. I love the way other regions recycle, repurpose and reuse everything from Mother Earth!
Coquilla nuts grow high up in South American palms, there are about 40 shelled seeds to a cluster, called a cabeza. Harvesting them appears totally harmless to trees and forests.
Did you know that 20% of all buttons were made of coquilla nuts in the 1920′s and the US military used them on uniforms?
So how do we make them? Rich gets in semi hardened seeds. The green and reasonably soft nut from the hard casing has the consistency of Jell-O. Once the nut is ripened, it becomes very hard, so the green nut is the time to shape or slice the coquilla into different molds.
The drying process is the trickiest part of utilizing coquilla nuts. The hollow, soft center is formed as the nut hardens. Each nut has a small stem that is softer and more porous than the rest of the nut.
It takes about 4 days to kiln-dry the nuts. Rich thinks it so much easier to work the nut if it is only dried about 70%, which is still pretty hard. We buy them dried 70% to carve. About 8% will have cracks or flaws in them, but he uses every little piece and scrap for different purposes.
There are basically five stages of shaping, detailing, sanding, polishing and drying. Most all those stages are accomplished with a bench grinder. After completing the shape, he dries it more. This extra drying helps to insure that it will not crack later. The last stage of drying is a little tricky and a bit of a pain. The pieces are laid out on paper towels under heat lamps. Sort of like incubating a chicken egg — not too hot, just nice and warm.
“All my creations are different, you never know what you will end up with at the end, which is part of the fun, ” says Rich “When it comes to color shading, the nut has swirl patterning that makes colors more varied and interesting. Every batch of vegetable dyed seeds ends up different. If you see a piece from us at one show you like, you better grab it because there is no guarantee that I can duplicate them again!”
Gypsy Rose Studios 