Coconut Palms – some interesting facts (courtesy of Earl R Hinz)
Vegetable life on the motus is dominated by the coconut palm, whose tolerance for the salty environment and poor sandy soil is beyond belief. They are the wanderers of the Pacific and float for thousands of miles until they are cast up on a shore, they have made barren islets into lovely motus.
Lying on its side in the warm tropical sun, the coconut soon sprouts into life, sending roots out through two of its eyes to seek water and food, while simultaneously spikes or fronds shoot skyward through the third eye seeking the life-giving sunlight. In five to six years it matures to the well-known graceful palm tree whose fronds rustle in the trade winds.
The coconut palm is the key to life for the islanders who inhabit the atolls. The fibrous trunk is prime building material, while the giant fronds are hand woven into roof thatches which can have a lifetime of three years. Carefully stripped, the fronds yield materials for structural lashings, baskets, mats and essential handicraft items. The husk of the coconut, which forms a cushion to protect the inner nut in the fall to the ground, also produces fibres for rope called sennit.
A coconut takes a year to develop from a flower to ripe nut. After reaching its mature size, but long before fully ripening, the green nut is at the drinking stage, providing more than a pint of sweet, nourishing coconut milk. The fluid of the drinking nut is a substitute for cow’s milk and fresh water.
As the nut begins to ripen, a thin, white pulp layer begins to form inside the hardening shell. This layer has the consistency of a soft-boiled egg white and makes a rare dessert treat. If the nut is left longer to ripen, the soft white pulp hardens into a thick layer while the milk turns to tasteless water. Shredded, this mature pulp ends up on cake frostings. Removed from the shell in chunks and dried in the sun, it becomes copra, from which coconut oil is extracted to be used in such widely varied items as soap and margarine. After the oil is extracted, the remaining material is used to feed livestock.
A more exotic product of the coconut palm is the hearts of palm salad, sometimes called “millionaires salad”. It is made from the hearts of the new sprouts of embryo coconut trees. Extracting the heart kills the tree, but at the same time, a useful thinning of new growth is accomplished.
Food and drink, shelter, body covering, and ornamentation – these are the contributions of the ubiquitous coconut palms to life in the tropics.
…….. not to mention how gorgeous and exotic they look lining all the beautiful bays we have sailed into and beaches we have sat on under their shade