The macadamia was classified and named jointly by Baron Sir Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich von Mueller, Director for the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne and Walter Hill, first superintendent of the Botanic Gardens in Brisbane.

The tree was named in honor of Mueller's friend, Dr. John Macadam, a noted lecturer in practical and theoretical chemistry at the University of Melbourne, and a member of Parliament.

William H. Purvis, a sugar plantation manager on the Big Island, visited Australia and was impressed by the beauty of the tree. He brought the seeds back to Hawaii where he planted them at Kapulena. For the next 40 years, the trees were raised primarily as ornamental trees and not for their fruit.

In 1921 a Massachusetts man named Ernest Shelton Van Tassell established the first macadamia plantation near Honolulu. This early attempt, however, met with failure, since seedlings from the same tree would often produce nuts of differing yield and quality. The University of Hawaii entered the picture and embarked upon over 20 years of research to improve the tree's crop.

It wasn't until the 1950s, when larger corporations entered the picture, that production of macadamia nuts for commercial sale became substantial. The first major investor was Castle & Cooke, owners of the Dole Pineapple Co. Soon after, the C. Brewer and Company Ltd., began their investment in macadamia nuts.

Eventually C. Brewer bought Castle & Cooke's macadamia operations and began marketing its nuts under the Mauna Loa brand in 1976. Since then, Mauna Loa's macadamia nuts have continued to grow in popularity. Mauna Loa remains the biggest producer of macadamia nuts in the world and their name is synonymous with macadamia nut products.

There are, however, a number of smaller growers who produce nuts. One of the best known is a small farm on the island of Molokai owned by Tuddie and Kammy Purdy. It is an excellent place to stop to get a personal lesson about Macadamia nut cultivation, and to taste and purchase fresh or roasted nuts as well as other macadamia nut products. Many of the photos in this article were taken at Purdy's Nuts on the island of Molokai.

On part two of this article, we look at some basic, and less known, facts about macadamia nuts and macadamia nut production in Hawaii. Following part two are pages of links to other sites on the Net where you can - learn more about what is largely regarded as the world's finest eating nut, purchase macadamia nut products for shipment to your home, or find all sorts of recipes using macadamia nuts.

Source - Hawaii Macadamia Nut Association