Adenanthera pavonina (Buah Saga)

The red seed is Adenanthera pavonina or commonly called Buah Saga locally or Red Sandalwood by the European. It is native to S.E.Asia unlike the Jacaranda which was introduced from South America. The Jalan Merah (means Red in Malay) Saga near Holland Village which we stayed when we first settled in Singapore is named after this tree. Interestingly, Adenanthera means goldsmith in Arabic and each Saga seed has a constant weight and was used as weights by goldsmiths. It has twice the weight of another poisonous seed called Crab's Eye (Abrus precatorius). The latter was used as weights in the Ganda system by the Indians in early days. Nature has its own system of units of weights and you don't need digital weighing machine.

As a kid, I remember watching Cho Cho's worker (called Chek Kang, another worker was Tua Dai) working on the jewellery at the back table of the goldsmith shop. To aid the soldering process, he would dip the gold pieces in to a small dish containing some ground particles (have to verify if they are ground Saga seeds) mixed with some fluid. Then he would torch them using the gas (acetylene?) flame to the other parts of the jewellery. From time to time, his foot had to step on a foot pump to sustain the burning flame. To these days, I am still wondering whether ground saga seeds have this use in goldsmith shops in days gone by but I don't seem to find an answer. Pa could not recall it. I may be totally wrong in this respect. Once in a blue moon, as I was hanging around Boon Wan, Tua Dai would bring me the coffee shop 2 doors away (where old Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank used to be) and bought me a piece of butter on a tooth-pick. In those days, eating frozen butter out of the fridge was a real treat, just like eating ice-cream. You know why I have high cholesterol these days.

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