atoll research bulletin no. 392 the flora of - Smithsonian Institution ...

Cocos nucifera L.
ini (N); te ni (K); niu (T)
"coconut palm"
Aboriginal introduction. S. Asia and Indian Ocean Islands. Abundant. Tall erect
single-stemmed palm with a slender, more or less curved or inclined, trunk, up to 30 m
tall; leaves, up to 4 m or longer, clustered at top of trunk, frond-like, pinnate, with
numerous narrow oblong-lanceolate leaflets (pinnae), 25 to 90 cm long; flowers, in
clusters on a simple-branched spadix, up to 1.2 m or longer, which originates in the mils
between the leaves, with female flowers at the base of the branchlets and small male
flowers near the tips and over the remainder of the branchlets; each spadix subtended by
a stout woody, boat-shaped, beaked bract or spathe; fruit, 15 to 30 cm long, subglobose
to ovoid or ellipsoid, one-seeded, with a thick fibrous husk surrounding a hard nut filled
with hard white oily edible pulp and, when young, with sweet water. Planted extensively
on coastal strip, around Buada Lagoon, near roads in strip-mined areas; occasional on
plateau and escarpment; common along strand; common in Nauruan home gardens and
occasionally planted around contract workers quarters at Location and Topside workshops.
Cultivars include inur, ito, ita, inamaro and ini. Formerly important for copra
production for export; trunks used in house construction and for animal pens; midrib of
frond used for flooring and walls of houses; young fronds used for weaving baskets, food
containers and parcels, mats, housing thatch, fans, hats, dividers for communal fish
farming in Buada Lagoon, and other plaited ware and for making skirts (ridi); old and
young fronds used for roofing; coir and dry leaves important as tinder in making fire by
friction and carrying fire; midrib of leaflets or pinnules used in brooms and in weaving;
soft endosperm (meat) and water (milk) of young, green nuts (ini) consumed; meat of
I mature nuts (eanikiwi) grated and eaten in a variety of ways and squeezed and boiled,
usually with flowers or leaves, to make perfumed coconut oil; coconut endosperm
("meat") has been an important staple throughout the small-island Pacific and in coastal
areas of larger islands, with some people receiving up to 70% of their dietary calories
from this source; it was also undoubtedly the main staple plant food of Nauruans in the
past and a major food for chickens and pigs; coir or husk of both green and mature nuts
used to make strong fibre and cordage (sennit) for strainers, affixing tool handles, boat
and house lashings, fishnets and lines, belts, canoe caulking, corks or stoppers, slings;
dried fronds, husks, and shells used as fuel for cooking; shells used for making charcoal,
one of the main uses being to fuel hand irons in the past; shells used to make drinking
cups in the past; sap from flower spathe tapped to make toddy (karawai) and then often
boiled down to make a molasses-like syrup (kamaimai); toddy often allowed to ferment to
become alcoholic "sour" toddy; loose burlap-like tissue (inini) at the base of the fronds
used to strain coconut milk; dust or pollen collected on lower ends of fronds used as a
blood coagulant and disinfectant; coconut oil use to treat tinea; inside of very small
immature nuts used in post-natal medicine; very young leaves, without the midrib,
chewed and used as a medicine for fever and infantile beriberi. 2, 3, 5, 6, 7.
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