Smoke trees

Sorry for the misleading title if there are any stoners out there, but in this instance "smoke" isn't a verb.  Our smoke trees (Cotinus obovatus) usually flower and then produce a hazy purple display for days before we notice.  Many of you are probably familiar with the smoke bush (C. coggygria), a fairly common ornamental shrub of Eurasian origin, but for reasons we have been unable to determine, our yard has 4 smoke trees, and they are native (N. Amer.) members of the anacard family (sumacs).  This time of year they put on quite a display that it tends to go unnoticed because it's up there in the crown of these 30-35 foot trees. Our smoke trees have clearly been there for some decades, and around here they are quite uncommon; ours are the only ones we know of in the area. So they are a puzzle as to how they came to be here. The "smoky" display is produced by the persistent, reddish-purple flower stalks of the much branched, poofty (technical term) inflorescences. Our neighbors have the best view, and that's how it goes. Several other ornamentals plants perform better for neighbors than for us.

Cashew nut - the human cost

TPP has been in southern India twice.  In this region the cashew is an important crop, but you can't buy any in the local markets; cashews are too valuable as a cash crop export, one of India's 4 top agricultural commodities(the others being tea, spices, and basmati rice). Here in North America and in Europe the cashew is a much favored nut.  Just watch and see how many people pick out the distinctive nut from a bowl of mixed nuts.  At this great distance it is hard to know about the human misery caused by this crop.  First, the cashew is a funny looking fruit; it looks like the seed is outside the fruit handing below the seedless "cashew apple".  The fleshy accessory fruit is very tasty, sort of like a mango to which it is related, but they are soft and not exported or shipped to temperate markets.  The asymmetrical "seed" is actually the whole fruit, a sort of hard drupe with a leathery outer layer and a hard inner layer, a "shell", surrounding the cashew embryo which is what you eat.  This is  where the hard, hand-labor part comes in, de-shelling the "nut".  Now here's the other thing to understand.  Cashews are in the Anacardiaceae, the sumac family.  So did you think poison-ivy?  Mangos are also in this family, a fleshier drupe, but the pitted seed still has the same asymmetrical shape. The sap that oozes from the fruit stalk gives TPP the same itchy rash as contact with poison ivy.  The women who crack the cashew pits to release the nut suffer from the continual occupational exposure to these toxic oleoresins, and for near starvation wages.  Why hasn't someone invented a shelling machine, something like the "crackers" used for pecans and walnuts in the USA?  The answer is that India has so much cheap labor available there is no demand for a machine that would put thousands out of work. Yet boycotting cashews won't do much good.  Middle men make the most money, but if demand for cashews drops, then near starvation becomes starvation.  So far there doesn't seem to be any "fair trade" cashews, and it TPP is wrong about this, please let us all know.