Coconut

Coconuts are the fruit of the coconut palm tree, which originated in Southeast Asia, and was transported throughout the Pacific either by migrating Indonesians and Polynesians or on the drifting ocean currents.

Coconuts are used as whole fruits or, conversely, by their parts: mesocarp fibers, milk, kernel (or flesh), husk. Its fruit, as big as a man’s head and 1-2 kg in weight, is a drupe with a thin, smooth, grey-brown epicarp, a fibrous, 4-8 cm thick, mesocarp and a woody endocarp; as it is rather light, it can be carried long distances by water while keeping its germinability for a long time. Inside it contains one seed, rich in reserve substances located in the endosperm, which is partly liquid (coconut milk), partly solid (flesh). When its embryo germinates, its radical breaks through one of the three germinating pores, visible from the outside as well.