The Coconut and the Need to Categorize Everything

There are many reasons as to why humans tend to put everything into a category or label. Doing so helps organize and create efficiency. It helps with memorizing what items can be used for or what things can be dangerous as well. This is something that humans have been doing for hundred if not thousands of years to help us understand and interact better with the world around us. Yet, much like the diversity of nature and human beings themselves, there comes along something that does not always conform to our rational way of thinking. The Coconut, much like human beings, can fall into different categories of classification.

Here the Coconut has the 2 outer layers

The Fruit

To many's surprise, the Coconut is actually a fruit, under the drupe family. This actually puts it in the same category as a peach or an olive. Who would have thunk? Well, since a drupe has a hard stony covering protecting the seed, much like an Apricot, this makes the Coconut one big drupe. Drupes have 3 layers: the outer layer, the middle fleshy layer and the hard wood-like layer protecting the seed. The Coconut in the image above like the ones found at the store have already had the outer layer and middle layer removed, leaving only what is called the endocarp, or woody layer which covers the seed.

Here you see the plant growing out of the seed

The Seed

Some scientist categorize the Coconut as a seed. Since a seed has an embryonic plant inside much like a Coconut, then it can be considered one big seed. Much like a seed with food to feed the embryonic plant, so too the Coconut has inside a fleshy white substance called the endosperm. The embryonic plant will shoot out through one of those dark circles or pores while its root will feed on the endosperm. The white fleshy endosperm is what people love to eat sometimes dry, or with lemon and chili or on certain pastries and deserts.

and The Nut

And yet the Coconut can also be loosely categorized as a nut. Nuts are classified as a one-seeded fruit, therefore Coconuts can be called a nut although they don't truly fall under that category. True nuts have to be digested by an animal or the wall of the seed has to decay in order to germinate. Coconuts left on the ground alone will germinate without this process, thereby not a true nut, although confusedly, the word 'nut' is found in the name 'Coconut.'

The Coconut should serve to remind us that not everything fits neatly and in order in our lives. Life is diverse and comes in all different shapes, forms, styles, sizes, colors and so on. In the end, it does not matter what the Coconut is as long as it is good. Hint! Hint!

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Image Source:

Pic 1 - flickr
Pic 2 Pixabay
Pic 3 wikimedia
Pic 4 Pixabay