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The coconut and other palms
 Stand anywhere in Chennai, be it the ancient Mylapore or the parvenu suburbs like Anna Nagar and look around, you are sure to see coconut trees. Such is the visibility of coconut in Chennai, indeed all along the coastal belt of the country.
In fact, the whole state of Kerala is named after this tree - its name in Sanskrit.
Even so, coconut is not a native of India, notwithstanding its ubiquity in all the ceremonies of India. The ‘poornakumbham’ used to welcome a celebrity is topped by a coconut. No Hindu worship or a ritualistic celebration is complete without a coconut.
A prayer answered, a ship launched, a foundation stone laid - all are marked by breaking a coconut. Even an occult practice meant to ward off the evil eye ends with breaking a coconut at some cross-roads.
The use of coconut as a food article in myriad forms is all too familiar to our readers to find a narration in a piece like this.
The employment of coconut oil for culinary purposes as also hair oil speaks of its multi-purpose utility.
Coconut is spoken of in our ancient texts and it is in daily use in every Indian home.
Yet, its original home is not India but Cocos Islands, a group of tiny islands whose total land area is 9.5 sq miles, far flung in the Indian Ocean, about 575 miles south-west of Java.
Everything about coconut makes it ideally constructed for dispersal by oceanic waves. Its epicarp (the outermost covering) is tight and firm and is impermeable to water; its mesocarp (mid portion) has fibres that do not easily ret and these fibres criss-cross several air spaces, an arrangement that at once lends strength and also help the nut to float; and the innermost is the endocarp which is hard and stony, housing the embryo.
The fruit is neither too heavy nor too light. Here you’ll find Nature’s designing at its best!
In some distant past, possibly long before man arrived on the scene, the coconut must have landed on the sandy shores of our east coast. Once thus established, it would not have taken long to spread all along the coastal belt, first on its own and later through human agency.
Though the tree is grown mainly for its ‘nuts’, almost every part of the tree is useful in one way or the other.
The roots serve as a diuretic; leaves can be woven into ‘thatch’ used to build a roof over mud walls; the axis of the flowering branch is tapped for toddy which has a rich store of sugar and on fermentation yields an alcoholic drink called arrack (wrecker of many a home); the mesocarpic fibre yields coir, from which ropes, mats and mattresses are made; the copra when pressed yields an edible oil; artistic containers are made from the shell; tender coconuts contain ‘coconut milk’, often referred to as ‘water’, with an invigorating effect on the thirsty consumer.
Indeed, it is impossible to make an exhaustive list of uses to which the various parts of the tree are put.
And, and - this is a very special and - the coconut milk is added in minute quantities to the culture medium used in tissue culture. What exactly is the chemical principle that makes it so valuable in this practice still eludes scientists!
Unquestionably, coconut is the ‘kalpavrksha’ of the gods.
 You’ll have noticed that I put the word, ‘nuts’, within quote marks. If you call it a nut, a botanist will look upon you as a nut, because botanically speaking, coconut is a drupe, characterised by a hard and stony endocarp. A nut, on the other hand, has a hard pericarp: walnut, cashewnut, etc., are true nuts, not coconut.
The scientific name of the coconut tree is Cocos nucifera. It belongs to the family of palms, palmae. The tree grows well near the seashore, the tall varieties reaching up to 25 metres. These are the wild ones, slow-growing and long-lived (up to 70-80 years), starting to bear fruit around the 12th year, going on to yielding almost till the tree is 50-60 years old.
This trait has its advantages: the inheritor of a coconut grove with about 1,000 trees is a wealthy person, for each tree bears about 100 fruits per annum. However, modern man is impatient. He wants quick returns.
On locating dwarf trees, short-lived and poor-yielding, the hybridiser set to work crossing the tall with the dwarf ones. The hybrids so produced are called TD varieties: they are early and heavy bearers though not as long-lived as the original tall ones.
The generation that is in a hurry, therefore, prefers these TD varieties. These grow up to 30 ft, start bearing the 3rd or 4th year onwards up to about 20-25 years.
In the recent past, a variety called Nicobar coconut has been introduced. It is only about 6-7 ft tall, with an early and good yield (of about 40 nuts per annum), with a lifespan of 5-8 years. The nuts are small, not exactly spherical and have a yellowish rind. These can be harvested standing on the ground - a great advantage.
But the most attractive feature of this variety is that the copra is half-an-inch thick all round. I have not seen anybody using it to quench his thirst: neither did I see anyone trying to express oil from it. Obviously, the Nicobar variety serves culinary purposes only and that too when raw.
Have you ever taken a close look at a coconut tree? If you did, you’ll have noticed transverse ovate scars, arranged alternately around the trunk. Each one indicates where earlier a leaf or frond was held.
 Look at these scars. Closely examined, they reveal minute perforations through which the soil water absorbed by the roots enter the leaf, after having traversed all the way up through the water-conducting channels of the trunk, called xylem vessels.
They are spirally arranged around the trunk. With the older leaves falling off and the younger ones bunched near the growing point, the leaves take on a crown-like appearance, rather deceptive.
Each frond has a lifespan of roughly three years and if by careful observation you are able to work out the number of leaves a tree bears through one year (you can do this by noting down the number of leaves that fall off through the year), you’ll be able to determine the age of the tree.
And now take a look at the leaves near the top. Obviously, they are the younger ones, recently emerged. In fact, the youngest one stands erect, almost vertically. This helps the young leaf against excessive radiation and also prevents heavy transpirational loss of water. An ingenious way of water-conservation!
Most palms have unbranched trunks. But years ago, I saw a branched palmyrah palm on Anna University campus. Obviously, the terminal bud got injured and cut up, each cut portion giving rise to its own trunk, not so well-grown. The cut portion of the terminal bud could supply only a small share of the nutrients.
Though a straight, unbranched trunk is characteristic of palms, there is one genus Hyphaene, where the trunk is branched. I saw two or three of these palms on the beach road leading to Andhra University in
Vizag.
Other palm trees commonly seen in Chennai are
Fish tail palm (Caryota urens)
Royal palm (Oreodoxa regia)
Palmyrah palm (Borassus
flabellifer).
 The last of these is commonly seen on the outskirts of the city, not very common in the city itself. Some years ago, I saw a talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera) somewhere in the city though I cannot recall the location. But I’m sure a careful search will not be in vain. I am specially mentioning this palm because it was the leaf of this palm which was used by our ancestors to write their literary works: they used a metallic stylus to write.
All the palm leaf books, which the later Tamil Thatha (Dr U V Swaminatha Iyer) unearthed obviously had their pages made from the leaves of talipot palm! Clearly, it was far more common in this part of the country in the past than now.
How wonderful it would be for someone to take up a project whose aim would be to grow these trees and encourage writers to make their text on its leaves. After all, man does not live by bread alone!
This tree is of interest for another reason too. It bears the largest inflorescence (a flowering axis) and having produced it, the tree dies. Such trees which flower only once in their lifetime, after many, many, long years are said to be
monocarpic.
There is a beautiful specimen of fishtail palm on the campus of Pachaiyappa’s College. It bears huge, hanging inflorescences. When their axis is tapped, an outstanding 180 gallons of toddy is produced, which on fermentation, I am told, gives a far more intoxicating alcoholic drink than arrack.
Look at the leaves and you will know why this palm is so named. Some years ago, I saw a few of these palms in Jeeva Park, T Nagar. Are they still there?
The royal palm is ornamental. It has an apparently smooth, whitish trunk with a large green bud scale at the top, giving it a characteristic appearance. It makes a beautiful avenue. You find some of them grown in a row in Nehru Park on EVR Salai. I think you have a few of them in Panagal Park, T
Nagar.
A palm that is gaining ground is the oil palm which yields an edible oil called palm oil. It is botanically known as Elaeis guinensis and is seen growing in the compounds of many bungalows in the city.
And now, a few concluding remarks on palms in general. The palm flower is unisexual. Some palms like coconut, bear flowers of both sexes on the same tree and others, like the palmyrah, bear male and females flowers on different trees, so much so you can speak of male palmyrah and female
palmyrah.
Some palms are monocarpic and some are polycarpic. Some palms have feather-like leaves and others, fan-like leaves. So, you may speak of feather palms and fan palms. For example, coconut is a feather palm and palmyrah a fan palm.
And there is the curious case of ‘rattan’ palm from which cane is made. Alone among the better known palms it is a climbing palm. Naturally, it has pliable stems and no wonder rattan is used in making furniture and other household articles, in the making of which the quality of pliability plays an important role. Rattan palm is botanically called Calamus rotang and is rarely seen growing in Chennai.
Prof K N
Rao
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