Coconut Seedling

Have you ever wondered where coconuts come from? They come originally from India, Guam and the Phillipines – at least according to Wikipedia. But, new plants come from what many call the nuts or fruits of these tall umbrella-like palm trees. They aren’t actually nuts, despite their name. They are in fact fruits known as drupes. Drupes are fruits where the fleshy part surrounds a hard seed.

When I first saw this coconut seedling drawing, I thought it might not be botanically correct. After all, the seedling has sprouted through the hard shell and not at the stem where it grew on the tree. This is however, how they grow. They actually split through the side of the coconut.

Oddly enough, despite being far too big a seed to be distributed by birds, coconuts are among the most naturally disbursed plants. They float. And, they can float for great distances without rotting. Therefore, the earliest natural locations for coconut palms were along coastal regions.

This vintage coconut seedling drawing dates back to 1916 and appeared in the 1917 edition of The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture.