Coconuts

Probably natives of tropical Asia or Melanesia, coconut palms (Cocos nucifera) flourish in tropical areas where their stately trunks (sometimes averaging one hundred feet in height) and their swaying, rustling leaves have become synonymous with beach holidays. The palm’s hard, brown nut reportedly earned its name when Spanish and Portuguese explorers likened the three eyes of the coconut shell to the face of a smiling goblin, or coco. Cited in Samuel Johnson’s 1775 Dictionary of the English Language, the word was once spelled “cocoanut,” but over time the “a” was dropped, possibly to avoid confusion with the word “cocoa.”