We’re right in the middle of our theme week on 5 Things You Didn’t Know Were Named After People! Today we’re talking about Macadamia nuts. They’re native to Australia and were an important food source for Aboriginal peoples there. Macadamia nuts were named for a 19th-century chemist and politician, John Macadam. Macadam wasn’t the one who discovered them or introduced them to the west, however. His friend and colleague, botanist Ferdinand Von Mueller, named the nut in his honor, after discovering them in the 1850s. Macadamia nuts were first produced commercially on a wide scale in Hawaii, where Australian seeds were introduced in the 1880s. For more than a century, Hawaii was the world’s largest producer, but South Africa now holds that title. Learn more in the audio below!