The Betty Black Blog

There is disagreement among scientists as to whether the Coconut Palm, Cocos nucifera, originated in South Asia or the West Indies. Dry coconuts are very buoyant and can float for miles across the ocean, wash up on a beach somewhere and grow into a coconut palm.

For those people who know only canned coconut cream and dried coconut in packages here’s something mind-boggling. In ancient Sanskrit the coconut palm was called kalpa vriksha, which translates as “the tree which provides all the necessities of life.”  No modern language could describe it better. Were you stranded on the proverbial desert island with a few coconut trees you would be provided with food, clothing, shelter and medicine. The juice of the young coconut, coconut water, contains vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates and anti-oxidants. The high electrolyte content makes it a better sports drink than any commercial product. This coconut water can also be used as intravenous fluid. The sap from the flowers can be fermented into wine.

Antique print by Koehler

The dried meat, known as copra, is used as livestock feed and to make the oil used in manufacturing commercial soap. A more refined oil is produced by boiling coconut cream, great for cooking and cosmetics. The dried husks can be used, like gourds, as small bird houses or, cut horizontally, for household brushes. They also make pretty decent drinking vessels and orchid pots and are used as musical instruments in the Philippines. The dried husks also make excellent kindling.  The shredded husk, coir, is woven into ropes and mats and used in flower baskets just as other countries use sphagnum moss. A woven-looking fabric which grows on the tree under the fruit was used in ancient times as loin cloths.

The tree trunk provides excellent lumber and is now gaining popularity as a sustainable wood. The stumps are used in some parts of the world as drums.

The leaves or fronds are thatch and most of the huts on tropical hotel beaches are thatched with coconut. The thatch is also woven into hats and baskets. The centre ribs can be used as arrows, skewers or fishing spears. In times past many a Jamaican child was disciplined with a coconut switch.

An infusion of the roots is used as mouthwash and as a treatment for dysentery.

And when you get sick of your desert island, hollow out the trunk of a tree into a canoe and get the hell out of there!

Read about more Jamaican plants at Jamaica-Allspice.com