Bixa orellana.
Botanical name:
Bixa orellana Linn. Bixaceae. Annatto.
South America. This shrub furnishes in the reddish pulp surrounding the seeds the annatto of commerce, imported from South America and used extensively for coloring cheese and butter. The culture of this plant is chiefly carried on in Guadeloupe and Cayenne, where the product is known as roucou. It is grown also in the Deccan and other parts of India and the Eastern Archipelago, in the Pacific Islands, Brazil, Peru, and Zanzibar, as Simmonds writes.
Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World, 1919, was edited by U. P. Hedrick.
