Na Bha.... long time , no see??/ busy kya? missed you...
ABOUT The seeds, Balkar ji ' guess is most likely right... did you used to eat Papaya while in india? so may be you or the family servants saved them for you...??? They would be edible, slightly astringent with a peppery taste, that last packs a punch, if one bites several ( 3-4) and chews them it sort of reminds one of black peppers, though papaya is less pungent . Hence Papaya seeds are very very commonly used to adulterate black peppers.... mostly for local Indian markets..... the exported seeds are not ... mostly because our western ie USA/UK customs strict rules and the importing houses would do scientific quality control and reject the consignment and the exporting house in India would not get paid and the shipping co would have to take it back.... keeps them honest. so do the taste test i*f you now after reading this recall eating papaya laden with seeds while you were visiting India .... but only then.... since this is a guess...* *Alternately* these could also be seeds of the silk cotton tree ...Cheiba Pentandra.... see picture at flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/pudin2008/3187696533/ The sheemul tulo sold in eastern India used to have the seeds and fibres in the past centuries, but now the seeds are removed from the floss and seed oil is a valuable commodity... DONOT TRY TO CHEW ON THEM... I do not know anything about their toxicity... *THIRD: seeds of Banana fruits*... some banana have large ie 3-4 mm black seeds that become wrinkled skinned after sitting around exposed to the air ... they are edible, all the bananas east or the west used to have them in the 70s and early 80s, until some bright/stupid geneticists and growers decided to do away with seeds from banana sold in the markets.... no more after dinner garden... in the 70s a very popular book was "After dinner Gardening" gave me lost of " work and delight and insight" taking each chapter and recreating in my kitchen... this is can go on... i'll stop and await your feed back to my earlier question and the taste test Usha di On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 9:57 PM, Balkar Singh <[email protected]> wrote: > May be papaya seeds > > > On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 8:22 PM, Na Bha <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hallo, >> in my last trip to india dec.11-jan.12 i collected these seeds, Don't >> know what happened to the capsules. >> I can't remember now, how the tree lookd like. Perhaps someone can >> identify them. >> >> TIA >> Nalini >> >> -- >> >> >> >> > > > -- > Regards > > Dr Balkar Singh > Head, Deptt. of Botany and Biotechnology > Arya P G College, Panipat > Haryana-132103 > 09416262964 > > -- > > > > -- Usha di =========== --
