It finally became
known as the coconut in the early 16th Century when Vasco
de Gama brought the nut back from his voyage to the Indian
Ocean. In Portuguese, ‘coco’ means ‘grinning
face’ or ‘monkey face’ – (derived
from the Portuguese for monkey – ‘macaco’)
because that’s what the three dark circles on the
shell resembled. Hence the Latin name for the palm: Cocos
Nucifera (‘nucifera’ means nut-bearing).
Distributed widely by the Portuguese,
the coconut was soon established in the Americas too.
Coconut palms thrive in a humid atmosphere, a temperature
of 27-30°C, a
free-draining well-aerated soil and a supply of fresh groundwater.
These conditions are common by the seashore which is why
palm trees are now part of the iconography of the perfect
beach holiday.
If there was ever any doubt about nature’s ingenuity,
one look at the coconut would convince even the greatest
cynic. This section of the site follows the coconut life
cycle – a great way to explore the complex evolutionary
engineering which makes the coconut unique.
If you’d just like to know
about the huge number of uses coconuts can be put to,
please go direct to the Coconut:
The Tree Of Life section.
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