If you look up from your beach chair, chances are you will see a coconut tree. This unusual tree, like most other palms, has no branches; instead the leaves come right out of the trunk near the top. The trunk has no bark and no growth rings and does not get much thicker after it has formed for it has no cambium — the layer of dividing cells that encircles most tree trunks and makes them get wider and wider each year. As the tree pushes upwards, the lower leaves drop off and leave their marks all the way up the trunk. A baby coconut tree has large intact green leaves; as it grows bigger its leaves become enormous: 12 to 20 feet long. Hung out in the strong island winds, these would be like giant tearable sheets and so the older leaves are divided into long narrow segments. Hurricanes can remove the leaves of an adult tree, but the trunks are rarely toppled and soon leaf out again.

If you dig deeply in the sand behind the beach, you will come to salt water seeping in from the sea. When it rains, lighter fresh water forms a lens on top of the salt water. Coconut trees live on the fresh water from this lens. They can withstand an occasional flooding of salt water from a storm, but cannot survive indefinitely without rain. If you visit the islands during a long dry spell, you will notice the leaves folded downward. This greatly reduces water loss from evaporation and helps the coconut survive a drought.

The coconut tree is one of many palm species, and although palms are often seen on the sea shore and in the desert, there are also palms that grow in the rain forest. Palms are as old, or possibly older, than any other groups of flowering plants and the fruits of their Jurassic ancestors fattened early dinosaurs.

The coconut grows well in pure sand or in good soil, but you see it more often in the sand because in good soil other plants can grow faster and shade it out. Its natural habitat is a narrow band at the top of the beach. After the buoyant nuts are deposited, they can continue to inch up the beach as they grow, by reversing the usual order of germination. Most germinating seeds send roots out right away to anchor themselves, and then a green shoot emerges. In the coconut a tuft of leaves pokes out of the shell and begins photosynthesizing before any roots emerge. During this time the coconut is like a potted plant and can move up the beach on an extra high tide or large wave. Eventually, the coconut will begin to put out its thousands of small roots, which may extend 30 feet from the trunk.

The coconut tree produces an amazing seed, the second largest in the world, in a package which is harder to break into than those seamless plastic wrappings which encase nearly everything we buy these days. It has a tough but flexible outer green husk. Inside is a fibrous layer, a shock absorber that protects the inner nut, which, in turn, has an impervious brittle brown shell. It can sustain an 80-foot free-fall and is more waterproof and seaworthy than many a ship.

Coconuts originated in the western Pacific and eastern Indian Ocean and it was not until Portuguese explorers brought the nuts around Africa that they began colonizing the Atlantic Basin. The seed is adapted to endure long sea voyages and coconuts have found their own way to many islands, but their final destination is at the mercy of the currents. Maybe this is why Columbus made it across the Atlantic to the Caribbean before the coconut. Nowadays it is hard to think of a Caribbean beach without coconut palms, so it is surprising to discover that they are recent arrivals.

Almost every part of the coconut has been exploited and it is often called one of the most useful trees in the world. The leaves can be used as thatch or woven into mats and rope is made from the husks. Lumber is made from the trunks. Green coconuts yield a delicious drink and mature nuts contain a nutritious meat that can be eaten raw, made into coconut milk for cooking, or dried and used in hydraulic brake fluid, synthetic rubber or to produce soaps and cooking oils. The shells have been used to make a myriad of objects, some considerably more beautiful than others.