THE VEGETABLE IVORY INDUSTRY - SURVIVING AND DOING WELL IN ECUADOR

Buttons made of vegetable ivory were once in great demand in industrial parts of the world. Vegetable ivory is the hard white seed endosperm from palms of the genus Phytelephas (Arecaceae). After World War II, ivory nuts were largely replaced by plastics. Recently the authors visited a factory on the coast of Ecuador that was founded in 1926 and still produces buttons of vegetable ivory on a large scale. Eighty employees produce about 5000 lb of buttons a month; these are exported to Japan, West Germany, and Italy. The production is described step by step and the future of vegetable ivory is discussed briefly. © 1990 The New York Botanical Garden.