General Information

COMMON NAMES: Coconut Palm, Coco Palm, Coco Tree, Coconut Tree, Cocoa Nut [Old English], Cocoanut [Old English], Porcupine Wood; German Kokospalme, Kokosnuss; French Cocotier nucifère, Cocotier porte-noix TRADITIONAL NAMES: Tumu-Nū / Pū-Nū (RR), Nū (MG AT MK), Pūnū (MT), Niu (AK TS TW PK NS), Nī (MH RK); Other Polynesian - Niu (SAM); COMMENT: Tumu / Pū mean "tree", and separate the Nū plant from the Nū fruit. GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION: NATIVE Malay - Indonesia - Cook Islands - ? COOK ISLANDS STATUS: Native, +Introduced - Polynesian and Recent; Land, lowlands - mountains (++++) SIGNIFICANCE LIST: Medicine, Ornamental leaves, Food (Fruit 4+),Material (Fibre, Wood) KEY FEATURES: Solitary palm to 30m and 100 years. TRUNK column-like, 30cmØ, cannot repair wounds. LEAVES 10-20 in a spiral crown, 12-14 per year, to 5x2m, two rows of leaflets/segments/pinnae forming one plane; LEAFLETS numerous, 1-ribbed, sword-like, to 80x8cm. FLOWERS branced cluster in leaf-joints; male flowers very numerous along branches, small, shed before females open; female flowers large, 3cmØ, at base of each branch. FRUIT large, to 2kg, ovoid; outer three layers - skin, husk and shell; seed with three layers - thin rind, oily white flesh, and water cavity.

Cook Islands Distribution

View Distribution Map

Southern Group: Present    Makatea: Present
RR	MG	AT	MK	MT	AK	PL	TK	MN
++++	++++	++++	++++	++++	++++	P	P	PW

Northern Group: Present
TN	MH	RK	PK	NS	SW
++++	P	P	++++	P	P

Cocos nucifera Linnaeus
TAXONOMY: PLANTAE; ANTHOPHYTA (=Angiospermae); LILIOPSIDA (=Monocotyledones); ARECIDAE; Arecales; ARECACEAE

SIGNIFICANCE NOTES -. Comment: NBSAP - Mauke (Nū Pokura & Kere, 4 of 9 domestic plants)
POSITIVE SIGNIFICANCE: Medicine, Ornamental leaves, Food (Fruit 4+),Material (Fibre, Wood). Comments: MATERIAL: Old wood from base hard, lasts well. Brown with black striping. Difficult to work due to tough fibres.

IDENTIFICATION: Long-lived, to c.100years, solitary palm to 30m. TRUNK column-like, unbranched, slightly curved, to 30cmØ, thicker at base. LEAVES in spiral terminal cluster of 10-20 leaves, each a frond to 5x2m, basal sheath a fibrous gauze; midrib with two rows of leaflets forming one plane; develop 12-14 leaves a year. LEAFLETS (=pinnae, segments), numerous, 1-ribbed, stiff, swordlike, to 80x8cm. FLOWERS simple-branched cluster, to 1m, at base of the leaves; female flowers singular at base of each branch, 3cmØ; male flowers, small, very numerous (200-300) along the branches, fall before female flowers open; cross-pollination by insects and wind; spathe (=bract) large, woody, narrow-oval, spits along underside. FRUIT large to 2kg, ovoid, to 35x25cm, skin (exocarp) ripening green, yellow or orange; husk (mesocarp) thick and fibrous, shell (endocarp) thin, hard, with 3 pores ('eyes') including one over the embryo; SEED large, embryo at base; endosperm (=flesh), 1-2cm, white, solid, oily, with central cavity of water. The ovary has 3 ovules assocaited with three pores in the shell, two abort and one develops.

GENERAL NOTE: The evidence that the Coconut Palm is native in the South Pacific to at least the Cook Islands is from Atiu and Mangaia. On Atiu coconut pollen is found in the pollen record at 8600BP (corrected date), which is several thousand years before the first Polynesian settlers arrived [Parkes 1997]. On Mangaia Coconut and Indian Mulberry are in the pollen record at 7300B.P. and the earliest dispurbance that might have been human-induced is at 2500BP [Ellison 1994]. On Moorea it is found at 1400BP when the settlement seems to have occurred around 1200BP [Parkes 1997]. The world's main source of vegetable fat, obtained from the dried flesh (endosperm). Husk provides fibre (coir).

Vouchers:
Pukapuka: fieldspecimen, 2/2004, G.McCormack with ID as Cocos nucifera.

References:
p.1362 Wagner et al.- Flowering Plants of Hawaii
p.119 Neal - In Gardens of Hawaii
p.291 Hortus 3rd
p.769 Tropica
p.1/437 A.C.Smith - Flora Vitiensis Nova
p.300 I Cheeseman - Flora of Rarotonga
p.24 ? Wilder - Flora of Rarotonga
p.383e Whistler - Ethnobotany of the Cook Islands

Data Update History (information):
zTX, zB02, zM02, zupB04b, zD02

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