Is coconut a nut?

CocoNUT.

It’s a nut right?

I mean it says so in it’s name!

Well, actually, no. A coconut is not a nut.

It’s a drupe.

A what? I hear you ask…. a drupe!

According to Wikipedia, the definition of a drupe is: “an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a single shell (the pit, stone, or pyrene) of hardened endocarp with a seed (kernel) inside. These fruits usually develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries. The definitive characteristic of a drupe is that the hard, "lignified" stone (sometimes called "pit") is derived from the ovary wall of the flower.

Clear!? Probably not!

Well think of a peach, apricot, plum, mango, olive, date…. these are all drupes.

So basically a drupe is any fruit that has a pit or stone in the middle.

So why is it called CocoNUT?

The coco part is easy - that derives from the Portuguese/Spanish coco, which translates to either “head” or “skull.” Every coconut has 3 holes at one end, meaning each one resembles a skull. In 1521 Portuguese and Spanish explorers came into contact with Pacific islanders with the coconut shells. These shells reminded them of a ghost or witch in Portuguese folklore called coco, and so the coco part of coconut was named.

But what about the nut part?

By definition, a nut is a fruit with a hard inedible shell which protects an edible seed they protect. Botanically speaking, the shells are part of the fruit’s ovarian wall, which hardens and becomes the nut’s shell. This means a “true nut” seed cannot break its own shell. The seed can only come out if the shell decays or is otherwise destroyed.

Coconut Palm Tree Antique Botanical Print from Kohler’s Medizinal Pflanzen circa 1883

A coconut has three layers, the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp. The exocarp is the outer layer (skin) which forms around the fibrous husk, the coir. That coir is the mesocarp, and the endocarp is the brown shell around the coconut flesh and coconut water. The flesh and water is referred to as the endosperm.

So what you typically know as a coconut is actually only the endocarp and endosperm part. And that part can be considered as a nut. One seed comes out of one coconut, and there’s a hard shell, so a coconut can be considered a nut.

But… it’s not a nut, we said…. confused yet?

Image found on Pinterest, creator unknown.

The endosperm or the “seed” is what germinates and starts making a coconut tree. It begins to sprout from one of the holes we talked about earlier.

We also said earlier that the a nut cannot break it’s own shell, but if a coconut palm sprouts through it’s own shell then…. we don’t have a nut on our hands!

So yeah….

Coconuts Are Drupes

The bit you eat/drink, the flesh, is the seed. The shell, is the shell. And the husk, or coir, is actually the fruit!

It all makes perfect sense right!