Cocos nucifera The Giving Tree pg.2
On south India’s Malabar Coast, the state of Kerala reveals its most prolific tree in its name—Kera (meaning coconut palm) and alam (land). Coconuts are considered auspicious across India and regularly used in Ayurvedic medicine, at temples, wedding ceremonies, the launching of a ship or the first take in a film shoot.
What Hawaiians call niu would have been easy to transport by canoe, but relatively small numbers (and only two varieties) suggest that the coconut palm may not have been introduced until later migrations. Although coconuts did not play as central a role in Hawaiian culture as on other Pacific islands, it is nonetheless easy to imagine that, upon arrival, one of the first terrestrial acts of settlers may have been to place coconuts on the ground, where they would germinate and produce a sprout that would develop into fronds and eventually a tree.
Coconut palms mature within their first decade and some varieties, at their peak, can bear thousands of nuts. Coconut palms can grow for 100 years or longer, like those towering palms at the historical Kapu-āiwa royal grove west of Kaunakakai on Moloka`i.
One of the best places in Hawai`i to enjoy a landscape of coconut palms is Kaua`i’s east side—the Coconut Coast from the Wailua River and neglected ruins of the Coco Palms Resort to Waipouli, site of the Coconut Market Place, up through Kapa`a Beach Park where the 13th Annual Kaua`i Coconut Festival will be held Oct. 3 and 4.
Another is Maui’s Kahanu Garden just before Hāna. On the sprawling grounds of Kahanu, in the shadow of the behemoth Pi`ilanihale heiau, is the Mary Wishard Memorial Coconut Grove.
