Is a coconut a fruit or a nut?

Answer 1

• The jury is out on whether the coconut is a fruit, nut or seed. A Botanist considers the coconut one-seeded drupe (aka: dry drupe.) A drupe is a fruit with a hard stony covering enclosing the seed (much like a peach or olive.) 'Drupa means 'overripe olive. The coconut and all drupes have three layers: exocarp (outer layer); the mesocarp (fleshy middle layer) and the endocarp (hard, woody layer that surrounds the seed.) The definition given as coconut can be all three: a fruit, a nut or a seed. Until proven otherwise the coconut comes under: fruit; nut and seed.

Answer 2

Though its name suggests that it is a nut, I've always regarded coconut as a fruit. When the coconut is young, it has properties like fruit, and as it matures, it becomes more nutty. But in fact it is not a nut or a fruit; it is a seed.

Unless it is picked, a matured coconut eventually drops from the tree. The fully developed hard shell does not crack easily. Dry and brown, the coconut may sit underneath the tree for months and appear as if it were dead, until one day a green shoot pushes its way out of the shell. The whole time the old coconut has been sitting under the tree, changes have been slowly taking place inside. At one end of the coconut (where the eyes are), an embryo starts growing, feeding off the juice and nutrition of the thick white flesh. This embryo develops into a creamy mass that gradually fills much of the empty space inside. It is good to eat - sweet, somewhat spongy and less fibrous than the matured meat.

The embryo eventually sprouts out of the shell and becomes a young coconut seedling. At this point, the plant can survive for several more weeks or months on the food and water inside as roots gradually develop and extend out of the shell to anchor the plant in the ground. Nutritious coconut meat can sustain life for a long time; one of my students, who is a horticulturist, has successfully used coconut milk to nurse seedlings of other plants in his greenhouse. Coconut palms lead a long productive life. They begin bearing fruits at the age of five to seven years and continue to do so until they are seventy to eighty years old.

As complete seed packages, coconuts have been known to travel to faraway lands to find new homesteads. Stories abound of coconuts floating their way across seas and oceans to be washed ashore on distant islands, rooting themselves in handsome groves to greet visiting humans in search of paradise. The dehusked coconuts you buy at the supermarket, however, are no longer productive seed packages. Once the husk is removed, the seed dies.

Answer 3

Why do you want to know?

Just kidding.

It is, botanically, considered as a drupe.

A drupe is basically a fruit with layers. Now, inside the fruit is a seed.

The "green part" for young coconuts is basically the whole of the drupe. The round, brown part that is hard because of the shell is the seed only.

Please check this website if you need to know more. =)))

http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/coconut.html

Answer 4

A coconut can easily throw you off by it's name. It can also lead discussion for days, even weeks. But finally i have an answer, a coconut is all three; A fruit, A nut, AND a seed.

Answer 5

A coconut is a fruit and a nut. So the answer is both.

Answer 6

it is not a nut, although that is a common mistake, the coconut part that falls of the tree is a seed which contains fruit

Answer 7

A coconut is a FRUIT

Answer 8

Fruit, nut or seed. Can be all three.

Answer 9

yes