Coconuts of the Caribbean

[Zeeth]

Last week I spent a few days in the Caribbean (Haiti, Jamaica and Cozumel, Mexico) so here's the coconuts I saw:

In Haiti:

Jamaican tall in Jamaica!

In Mexico; I believe this to be a juvenile tall type

Base of tall type, it was very fat, I'd say some 3 feet in diameter, probably more

[Zeeth]

Leaning coconut in Mexico

Another picture

The beach with coconuts

Another coconut in Mexico

That's all, hope you enjoyed!

[Peter Pacific]

Hi Keith, I know you're a coconut lover and your pictures are fun. How's the coconut I gave you...which seemed to turn out to be a dwarf...sorry, I know you wanted a tall one! Here's a picture of the tall ones of the southern coast of Guatemala on the beach.

Peter

[empireo22]

I love the leaning coconuts! have you seen any that lean out over the sea?

[Walter John]

Cocos nucifera, I would love to have hundreds of them, never tire of seeing pics of these, thanks for posting Keith..

[tropicbreeze]

Coconuts are a 'mixed blessing'. I've got about 40 to 50 medium to tall (after lightning took out 6 of them), and about the same sprouted to small. Cleaning up the fronds is a pain, standing under them when they're loaded with fruit can be a greater pain. And I'm forever warning visitors to keep away from them, especially kids wandering around. Bit of a "Monkey's Paw" situation.

[palmcurry]

Keith, Thanks for the photos. Living in a California clime you kinda forget what a Coco looks like up close. Jamaican tall is my favorite of the bunch

[mlovecan]

Coconuts are a 'mixed blessing'. I've got about 40 to 50 medium to tall (after lightning took out 6 of them), and about the same sprouted to small. Cleaning up the fronds is a pain, standing under them when they're loaded with fruit can be a greater pain. And I'm forever warning visitors to keep away from them, especially kids wandering around. Bit of a "Monkey's Paw" situation.

So true. My friends in Key West were so stressed about where I parked my car. But still, they are coconuts...

[Zeeth]

Peter, The coconuts you gave me are doing fine. Unfortunately, we had to move and I only had a weeks notice that we were moving (I was away at college), so I had to leave them because I had them planted and when i tried to dig them up my only shovel broke! I'm sure they'll be fine where they are, but it was pretty sad leaving them behind.

Empireo22, i didn't see any leaning out onto the sea actually. I was pretty surprised because I hardly saw any coconuts in Jamaica. I guess they weren't extensively replanted after LY took out a majority of the population

As to coconuts being a mixed blessing... I guess I'll have to find this out the hard way!

[hanapalms]

Nice pics Zeeth, we have a lot of coconut palms around the islands here, but of late, many of them look like feather dusters because of the radical trimming of the leaves. Other than in very remote places and on private property, one seldom sees trees with fruit. This practice is a result of several deaths and serious injuries to people who were unfortunate to be under one of these palms when the fruit or leaf fell.

I had a grove of about sixty trees in my garden, but after they grew to over twelve feet in height, I had them all removed, except for the two dwarf Samoan trees, a dwarf Malaysian and one other which has the largest fruit I've ever seen. The National Tropical Botanical Garden's grove at Kahanu Garden down the road from me had a grove of just about all the varieties there are, but the grove was obliterated by the virus that attacks the growing point of the tree. I think I just lost my dwarf Malaysian to that virus, it's growing point is brown and the two leaves before it are brown also. However, I do have a bunch of young seedlings like the one I sent you.

I have been using hydrogen peroxide to treat palms that are in distress at the growing point; it seems to work well, I save a Dictyosperma album and a couple of Dypsis rivularis so far. The Malaysian cocos was too far gone when I discovered it had a problem.