Plant · P-513

Coconut

Cocos nucifera

Coconut palm produces one of the most versatile yields of any tree: an edible seed eaten raw, dried or pressed for milk, oil and water, plus a sap that ferments into alcohol and a heart of palm eaten as a vegetable. Its husk fiber, trunk timber, shell and fronds are all put to use, from rope and thatch to charcoal and construction lumber. It grows only in frost-free coastal heat, is killed by any freeze, and a mature palm can tower to 100 feet and take twenty years to reach full production. Its floating, salt-tolerant seed sprouts readily on open shoreline, so the same trait that lets it colonize new beaches also makes seedlings free replacement stock anywhere away from moving water.