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The coconut is the fruit of most economically important member of the important member of the great PALM famly,Palmae.The genus Cocos contains one species, C. nucifera. Cultivated in tropcal owlands, almost always near the sea, the coconut grows througout Southeast Asia and along tropical African and Amercan coast. Much of its propagation has occured thriugh the distribution of its fruits - which can remain viable in seawater for several weeks - by ocean currents.
The coconut tree grows to 30 m (98ft) in height and may live 100 years. It has a single growing point that produces huge pinnate leaves, or fronds, and yellow or white flowers that form the fruit bunch. The fruit is a large, single-seeded drupe with hard stony "shell" and a fibrous husk. Liquid inside the shell becomes solid and only to form the coconut meat, which is subsequently dried to make commercial copra.
The coconut forms the very basis of life for many people, particularly in the Pacific area. Its lquid provides food and drink; the shell, domestic utensils and fiber; the leaves, thatch and panting. The wood is often the only avalable tmber, and the sap led from ts bud produces a sweet drink, alcoholic beverages and sugar syrup.
Because of its high content of saturated fatty acids and its good keepng quality, coconut oil was a princpal ingredient of margarine and cooking and salad oils and salad oils, as in soap and shampoo manufacture. Health concerns hasve the uses of saurated fats in foods, and use of coconut oil in edible pruducts has decline.