Coconut 



147 



subulate. The fruit is large, smooth, 3-angled, often 3 dm. long, with a thick, 

 fibrous husk enclosing the oblong bony hollow nut, which has 3 orifices near the 

 end and is lined with the sweet white endosperm and filled witb a sweet limpid 

 juice, much prized as a delicious drink. 



This palm is the most important member of its family, at least from an econom- 

 ical standpoint, its useful applications being remarkably numerous. The ripe 

 fruit is the popular coconut of commerce, used as a staple food in all the tropics 

 and as a delicacy in temperate regions, to which the preserved dried flesh in the 

 form of desiccated coconut is also sent and consumed in large quantities as a basis 



Fig. iio. — Coconut, Key West, Florida. 



for various confections. The "milk" of the ripe fruit is very nutritious as well 

 as deUcious, while the watery contents of the younger fruit is one of the most 

 wholesome and delicious drinks obtainable in the tropics. The dried flesh, freed 

 of the hard covering, is a staple commercial product under the name of copra, 

 from which a thick bland oil is expressed. In the tropics coconut oil is an impor- 

 tant article of food, it is also the base for fine soaps; the residuum, after the oil is 

 expressed, is a valuable food for cattle. The fibrous husk, under the name of 

 coir fiber, obtained from the unripe fruit, is the basis of an important industry 

 which furnishes a very important coarse fiber, largely used in the manufacture of 



