Betel nut In Encyclopedia Britannica (Vol. 3, p. 551) with reference to “betel nut” it is mentioned : The name betel is applied to two different plants which in the east are very closely associated in the purposes to which they are applied. The betel nut is the fruit of the areca or betel palm (areca catechu) …. For chewing, the fruits are annually gathered between the months of August and November, before they are quite ripe, and deprived of their husks. They are prepared by boiling in water, cutting up into slices and drying in the sun, by which treatment the slices assume a dark brown or black colour …. …. Betel nuts are used as source of inferior catechu (g.v.); its chief alkaloid is arecoline, to which anthelmintic properties are attributed. The drug finds some use in veterinary medicines as an anthelmintic. (Dineshchandra Jamnadas Gandhi v. State of Gujarat, (1989) 1 SCC 420 (425)