Up in the branches of the coconut palms
that wave gently in the breeze on a million tropical beaches
are the coconut fruits. Clusters of green or yellow young
fruits which gradually lose their bright colour and become
a shade of brown as they mature.
But beware, that’s not a fruit you’re looking
at: it’s a seed – the second largest in the
plant kingdom exceeded only by the rare ‘coco-de-mer’ or
double coconut. And if it drops on your head, you’ll
know about it because it weighs between 1 and 4 kilograms
when mature. (A typical 2 kilo coconut falling from a 25
metre tree reaches 80 kph and can hit with a force equal
to a metric ton!)
When it reaches maturity, the fruit
falls. If you were to pick it up, you would have a large,
round, solid ball with a tough outer skin. Inside the
skin is a layer of lightweight fibrous material – the
husk which protects the seed inside from splitting open
if it drops on hard ground.
Peel away the husk and you’ll
reveal a hard, round, brown shell as used at a fairground
coconut shy.
Due to the hard shell (and the name!) it’s tempting
to think of the coconut as a nut. However, it’s technically
a special type of fruit called a drupe which contains its
seed within a hard stone or shell which in turn is contained
within a fleshy (or in the coconut’s case, fibrous,
outer layer).
The shell has three round markings
at the base – often
referred to as the coconut’s ‘eyes’ (see
the How
The Coconut Got Its Name section for the
consequences of this ). The softer of the three eyes conceals
the seed embryo and when it germinates, the sprout emerges
from this point. Inside the shell there is a layer of firm
white flesh – the albumen or kernel which later
provides nutrients to the seedling as it grows. There will
also be some liquid although to obtain the purest, most
refreshing coconut water like Cocofina, only tender coconuts
harvested directly from the palm can be used.
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