Cocos nucifera Linnaeus, 1753 - coconut from a coconut palm (public display, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA)

Plants are multicellular, photosynthesizing eucaryotes. Most species occupy terrestrial environments, but they also occur in freshwater and saltwater aquatic environments. The oldest known land plants in the fossil record are Ordovician to Silurian. Land plant body fossils are known in Silurian sedimentary rocks - they are small and simple plants (e.g., Cooksonia). Fossil root traces in paleosol horizons are known in the Ordovician. During the Devonian, the first trees and forests appeared. Earth's initial forestation event occurred during the Middle to Late Paleozoic. Earth's continents have been partly to mostly covered with forests ever since the Late Devonian. Occasional mass extinction events temporarily removed much of Earth's plant ecosystems - this occurred at the Permian-Triassic boundary (251 million years ago) and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (65 million years ago).

The most conspicuous group of living plants is the angiosperms, the flowering plants. They first unambiguously appeared in the fossil record during the Cretaceous. They quickly dominated Earth's terrestrial ecosystems, and have dominated ever since. This domination was due to the evolutionary success of flowers, which are structures that greatly aid angiosperm reproduction.

Coconuts are only produced by one species of tree - the coconut palm. Coconut palm trees are widespread along and near most tropical to subtropical, Old World and New World and Oceanic coastlines. They appear to have originated in the western and southwestern Pacific and were later introduced to the New World by Europeans.

Coconut trees have moderately thick, mostly subcylindrical, linear to curvilinear, upright to tilted trunks. The crown consists of several, very long, highly segmented leaf blades. Leaf blade segments arise from a very prominent midrib. Coconuts are the fruit of this tree. They are large, irregularly rounded, and green to yellowish-brown to brown in color, depending on the degree of ripeness.

From museum signage:

Palm Family Palmae

Genera: 200 Species: 3000

This family has a widespread distribution worldwide, with nearly all members restricted to tropical or subtropical regions. Palms occur in a wide range of habitats from humid lowland rainforests to semi-deserts, from mangrove swamps to high mountains.

Palms are important sources of food throughout their distribution, supplying coconuts, dates, palm oil, and sago, a major source of carbohydrate for many people living in the tropics. They also supply many useful fibers for home and furniture construction, rope, and baskets.

Slender trees, stout shrubs, or sometimes vining, stems usually unbranched. Leaves usually large, alternate, evergreen, pinnately or palmately divided or compound, rarely entire. Flowers regular, bisexual or unisexual, males and females found on the same or different plants, borne in paniculate inflorescences; sepals 3, free or fused; petals 3, free or fused; stamens 6, rarely many; carpels 3, free or fused basally. Fruit a berry or drupe.

When a coconut sprouts, a shoot and roots emerge from the thick fibrous husk. Inside, a modified seedling leaf swells as it absorbs the food material stored inside the shell. After the stored food is used up, the young palm depends solely on its roots and leaves for the absorption of nourishment and photosynthesis.

Cultivated coconut palms are grown from the nuts above ground, sprouting through one of the eyes - a thin spot in the shell - as the husk splits.

When green, coconuts have a thin husk and a jellylike interior, which first turns to a clear "milk" and then builds up as the white fleshy layer. The milk is good to drink and the flesh - edible at all stages - is the source of coconut oil.

Classification: Plantae, Angiospermophyta, Arecales, Arecaceae/Palmae

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