The branches support a huge diversity of epiphytic plants. This family is mostly tropical, with the best known species to be mango and cashew, but few are temperate including sumacs and poison ivy.ДЇun Fact: The tree house at the Canopy Lodge is situated in a 150-year old EspavГ©. Most are trees or shrubs, a few species are lianas. The Wild Cashew and commercial Cashew tree ( Anacardium occidentale) are members of the family Anacardiaceae, which contains approximately 700 species worldwide, and 170 species in Tropical America. The tree provides a canopy so wide and lush.

The circumference of the tree, including all its branches, is 1,600 feet, or the equivalent of 70 large, mature cashew trees. It ranges from Costa Rica to northern South America, and often found along riverbanks. The monumental tree that produces raw cashews from its cashew apples takes up nearly 2 acres of land, solidly staking its claim as the largest cashew tree in the entire world. The Wild Cashew is a very conspicuous and dominant tree in the forests surrounding the Canopy Family lodges, and one of the most abundant around central Panama. Wood is soft and light, and can be used for construction, tools, furniture and boxes. The nut contains a very toxic oil, but is edible if roasted. Seeds are dispersed by fruit-eating bats-they eat the fleshy fruit and drop the nuts for germination. The Wild Cashew tree fruits from March to June, and fruits are eaten by many birds and mammals. They form on a twisted, fleshy appendage, 3 cm long. They produce a strong, sweet, clove-like scent.ДЇruits are fleshy and kidney-shaped, 3-4 cm long and resemble a cashew. Flowers bloom from December to April during PanamaвЂ™s dry season.

Instead, the true fruit is a smaller, kidney-shaped structure that grows underneath the cashew apple, also known as a drupe. Yet, this part of the plant isn't the fruit. What is the fruit of the cashew tree called The tree produces a fleshy, pear-shaped stalk called a cashew apple on its branches. They are arranged in inflorescence of loose, broad clusters at ends of branches. There is only one cashew nut in a cashew apple. Flowers are small, creamy green to pinkish in color. Leaves on young trees are much longer than mature leaves.

Leaves are alternate and spiraling at the end of each branch leaf blades are 9-40 cm long and 5-16 cm wide, widest near apex, forming an inverse teardrop shape. It lacks large buttresses, but the base of the trunk is somewhat enlarged. This tree is distinguished by its coarse bark, deeply grooved and sometimes flaking. Standing up to 60 m tall and with a trunk up to 3 meters in diameter, this is no doubt a forest giant. A close relative to the commercial Cashew tree, the Wild Cashew, locally known as EspavГ©, is a huge, common tree in the lowland humid forests of Central Panama.

Cashew on tree