Aleurites moluccana, the Candlenut, is a flowering tree in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, also known as Candleberry, Indian walnut, Kemiri, Varnish tree, Nuez de la India, Buah keras or Kukui nut tree. 

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It grows to a height of 15–25 m (49–82 ft), with wide spreading or pendulous branches.  The leaves are pale green, simple and ovate, or trilobed or rarely five-lobed, with an acute apex, 10–20 cm (3.9–7.9 in) long.  The nut is round, 4–6 cm (1.6–2.4 in) in diameter; the seed inside has a very hard seed coat and a high oil content, which allows its use as a candle (see below), hence its name.

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In Ancient Hawaiʻi, kukui nuts were burned to provide light.  The nuts were strung in a row on a palm leaf midrib, lit one end, and burned one by one every 15 minutes or so.  This led to their use as a measure of time.  One could instruct someone to return home before the second nut burned out.  Hawaiians also extracted the oil from the nut and burned it in a stone oil lamp called a kukui hele po (light, darkness goes) with a wick made of hapa cloth.

Hawaiians also had many other uses for the tree, including: leis from the shells, leaves and flowers; ink for tattoos from charred nuts; a varnish with the oil; and fishermen would chew the nuts and spit them on the water to break the surface tension and remove reflections, giving them greater underwater visibility.  A red-brown dye made from the inner bark was used on kapa and aho (Touchardia latifolia cordage).  A coating of kukui oil helped preserve ʻupena (fishing nets).   The nohona waʻa (seats), pale (gunwales) of waʻa (outrigger canoes) were made from the wood.   The trunk was sometimes used to make smaller canoes used for fishing.   Kukui was named the state tree of Hawaii on 1 May 1959 due to its multitude of uses.   It also represents the island of Molokaʻi, whose symbolic color is the silvery green of the kukui leaf.

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In Tonga, even today, ripe nuts, named tuitui are pounded into a paste, tukilamulamu, and used as soap or shampoo.   As recently as 1993, candlenuts were chewed into sweet-scented emollient utilized during a traditional funerary ritual in the outlying islands of the Kingdom of Tonga.  Their scent was also used for making various sweet smelling oils for the skin