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Why They Are Called Macadamia Nuts
Born in May of 1827
in Northbank, near Glasgow, Scotland, John MacAdam (Macadam) was a brilliant
young scientist in the fields of chemistry and medicine who emigrated to Melbourne,
Australia soon after his graduation from Glasgow University.
[He is not to be confused with John Loudon MacAdam (1756 – 1836), an engineer
and fellow Scotsman, who, after coming to the United States, invented the system
of constructing roads known as “macadamized roads.”]
In 1858, John MacAdam was appointed the Victorian Government Analytical Chemist
and in 1860 became the Health Officer for the City of Melbourne. He also served
as a member of the Legislative Assembly and the Executive Council of Victoria.
MacAdam was the first lecturer to teach at the University of Melbourne School
of Medicine, offering his initial lecture in chemistry on March 3, 1862.
In spite of his many scientific accomplishments however, he did not “discover”
the tree that bears his name.
It was John MacAdam’s good friend, fellow scientist and colleague, Baron Ferdinand
Heinrich von Mueller (June 30, 1825 – October 10, 1896), a well-respected physician,
geographer and most notably, a botanist serving as Director of the Botanical
Gardens in Melbourne, who upon identifying and classifying the tree, named it
in honor of MacAdam.
Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Proteales
Family: Proteaceae
Genus: Macadamia
Species: macadamia integrifolia and macadamia tetraphylla
Facts on Macs
The macadamia tree is related to the protea family. Virtually all of Hawaii’s macadamia nuts come from the Big Island of Hawaii.
Hawaii was the site of the world’s first commercial macadamia nut farm. A
sugar plantation manager named William H. Purvis introduced the macadamia to
Hawaii in the late 1800's.
Macadamia nuts are not picked from the tree but are harvested when the nuts have fallen to the ground—a sign that they are fully ripe.
A typical macadamia tree in an orchard may take seven years to begin producing
and will not attain full production until it is 10 to 12 years old.
Generally, a single tree can produce approximately 65 pounds of nuts each year.
Once harvested, the nuts must be husked within 24 hours.
A tough nut to crack! It takes 300 pounds per square inch to break the shell
of a macadamia nut—the hardest of all nut shells.
Hawaii has more than 700 macadamia nut farms and 8 processing plants. The industry employs some 3,000 workers statewide.
Hawaiian Moment
Honolulu Star Bulletin •
Sunday, May 23, 2004
By: Robert C. Schmitt for The Hawaiian Historical Society
Macadamia nuts, native to Australia, were first planted in Hawaii around 1881.
William Purvis, the young manager of the Pacific Sugar Mill at Kukuihaele
on The Big Island, planted seed nuts that year at Kapulena. Eleven years later,
the Jordan brothers successfully planted some seeds at their home in Nuuanu.
The nuts soon became popular with Hawaii residents, but they were not planted
commercially until 1921. In that year, Ernest VanTassel leased government land
on Round Top and planted it with seeds from the Jordan and Purvis trees. Then,
in 1922, he formed the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Co., Ltd. Other planters quickly
followed, establishing macadamia nut farms on Oahu, The Big Island and elsewhere.
Commercial processing of macadamia nuts began in 1934 at VanTassel’s new factory
in Kakaako. The nuts were shelled, roasted, salted, bottled and marketed there
as “Van’s Macadamia Nuts.”
Macadamia nut candies became commercially available a few years later. Two well-known confectioners, Ellen Dye Candies and the Alexander Young Hotel candy shop, began making and selling chocolate-covered macadamia nuts in the middle or late 1930’s.
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