663.000 Cocos L.

Palms stems solitary, erect or ascending, often leaning; robust, unarmed; trunks with conspicuous nodal rings. Leaves sheath coarse, cloth-like, not forming crown shaft; petiole unarmed, base entire, lamina pinnate, unarmed; plication reduplicate, segments regularly arranged. Inflorescence axillary within crown of leaves; paniculate with 1 or 2 orders of branching, stiffly ascending; peduncular woody bract, beaked splitting abaxially. Flowers sessile, 3 free sepals; petals 3, valvate. Fruit drupes, strongly to obscurely 3 angled, smooth usually green, yellow or orange; mesocarp very fibrous, dry; endocarp thick, bony. Seeds 1 very large, hollow, fluid-filled, endosperm lining cavity of seed, oily.

Derivation of name: from the Portuguese word coco meaning head or skull after the three indentations on the coconut shell that resemble facial features.

Worldwide: 1 species native from Central Malesia to SW Pacific, now pan-tropical.

Zambia: 1 cultivated taxon.