Photos -  The single button is embossed and tinted Vegetable Ivory.  In the second photo the top left item is a Vegetable Ivory stud, showing one of the natural colours. (The stud shanks are fitted through spaces in the braid.)  

From Sea to Clouds in Ecuador – National Geographic December 1941

 “Ivory” Grows on Palm Trees.

"Some wag has suggested that Ecuador might well adopt the slogan:  “We button the world!”  For the last five years the country has shipped an average of more than 27,500 tons of tagua nuts, or “vegetable ivory”, from which come millions of buttons.  An excellent substitute for elephant ivory in colour, texture, and hardness, nuts are also used in making umbrella handles, chessmen, and numerous ornaments.

At home, native Ecuadorian carvers fashion the nuts into likenesses of their heroes and into tiny sewing sets, tops, boxes, and countless other souvenirs.  These are the wares most tempting to travellers.

Tagua nuts are the seed of a stunted palm fern, the Phytelephas macrocarpa, which grows wild in the hot, steamy jungles of the lowlands.  A 15 to 20 foot plant suggests a stunted coconut (tree) with wide-spreading fronds.

Drupes, or large burrs, about the size of a man’s head, form around the trunk, and in these grow seeds from one and one-half to more than two inches in diameter.

In their formative stages they consist mainly of a clear, thirst-quenching fluid, and later a sweet milky substance that increases in consistency.  When fully ripe, the nuts are so hard that it is difficult to cut them.

Nut gatherers, or taguaros, roam the jungles collecting the ripened fruit and bring in loads by pack, dugout, or balsa raft to market centres.  Much hard work lies back of this button business."

Drupe – an indehiscent (not opening to release seeds) fruit, consisting of outer epicarp (skin), fleshy or fibrous mesocarp (middle layer/flesh), and stony endocarp (inner layer of the fruit, usually woody), enclosing a single seed.  It occurs in the peach, plum, and cherry.  (from Latin druppa wrinkled over-ripe olive, from Greek: olive) – Collins English Dictionary.

Button Banter

Button Banter is now up and running for members only. It has its own heading at the top of the Home page which you can see once you log in.  Click on this heading to view contributions.  If you want to add an item use 'Add Button Banter'  under the Member Menu on the right of that screen or the Home page.  

Button Banter is for you to share your button interests with other Club members, ask advice or give feedback. You can also see other members buttons or Button Challenge Cards or join in and show your own. It is preferable to post your photo in portrait format.