RSS

Tag Archives: coconut

147. The Big Bum Coconut

Fruit come in all shapes and sizes, no sizes greater however, than that of the Coco de Mer. This bizarre fruit is both rare and exotic, with more than a passing resemblance to a pair of buttocks, earning it the nickname of the ‘Bum nut’ This curiosity is only found on two islands in the Seychelles, Praslin and Cureuse. Also known as the ‘Seychelles Coconut’ it requires 7 years to mature and then another 2 to germinate.

Once it is finished with all of its growth it reaches phenomenal weights, the heaviest one weighed reached 42kg  the largest weight of any fruit ever recorded. Behind this also lies a small mythology, it’s latin name Lodoicea callipyge means in part ‘beautiful rump’ after sailors who saw the mysterious double coconut thought it resembled a pair of disembodied woman’s buttocks.Until the trees were found to be the source in 1768,  people believed their source to be a mythical tree at the bottom of the sea.                   Read the rest of this entry »

 
2 Comments

Posted by on June 16, 2011 in Articles, Trivia

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

107. Nameless Coconuts

East of Papua New Guinea one can find the exotic Solomon Islands, this small landmass collective happens to be a near perfect for the growing of coconuts.

These days the coconuts are still vital, both as an export as well as the many services that are afforded by the useful trees So important are they in fact that there are nine words dedicated purely to describing the different stages of growth that the coconut goes through.

Stranger still, their language has no actual word for the coconut itself. Leaving coconuts well described but unnamed by the Pijin language. Yet another example of how truly different cultures can be.

 
1 Comment

Posted by on May 7, 2011 in Trivia

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,