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Branched coconut palms! | |
Coconut palms with four stems | |
Coconut palms with seven stems | |
Coconut palms with nine stems | |
The most branched ! 14 stem… |
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Branched coconut palms! | |
Coconut palms with four stems | |
Coconut palms with seven stems | |
Coconut palms with nine stems | |
The most branched ! 14 stem… |
Dancing coconut eyes! | |
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This is the rarest form of horned coconut, and we hed the opportunity to collect and picture only one, in French Polynesia.
Here are some global views of horned coconut...
The appearance of the coconut palm itself is normal, it is only in the inflorescences and bunches that the peculiarities become visible. Coconuts contain a normal white kernel and germinate normally. The taste of the kernel does not differ from that of ordinary coconut palms.
Inflorescence of an Indian horned coconut photographed in 2012 by Dr Augustine Jerard Bosco. |
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Young bunch of a horned coconut palm photographed in 2021 in French Polynesia by Dr R. Bourdeix |
The coconut palms themselves are normal. Some of them are not very productive, but not all of them. In French Polynesia, we observed some horned coconut palms which annually produced a good hundred fairly large fruits.
The coconut palm producing 3-horned coconut in French Polynesia |
© R. Bourdeix, 2021
Here is one of the rarest coconut husk botanic freak, a very rare natural square coconut from French Polynesia! The coconut husk normally have three sides only, and this one have 4, that gives the husk a shape of square when cut. Inside the coconut shell is round and have normal 3 eyes. I was collected in 2021 from an attoll of the Tumaotu archipelago.
There are also ways to create artificial square coconut by by human intervention, but this one is the only fully natural!