Coconut - origins
Fossil coconuts have been found as far apart as India and New Zealand. Wild coconut seeds germinate even after floating on ocean currents for 3-4 months traveling long distances. Because of this, natural dispersal in the Indo-Pacific probably took place long before domestication started.
Disperal by humans
Human dispersal of domesticated coconuts probably began when people travelled from Southeast Asia to the Pacific and India, some 3,000 years ago. Wild coconuts already occurred in these places, and this provided the opportunity to interbreed them with domesticated types. Polynesian, Malay and Arab navigators played an important role in further dispersal of coconut into the Pacific, Asia and East Africa. The coconut became truly pantropical in the 16th century after European explorers had taken it to West Africa, the Caribbean and across to the Atlantic coast of tropical America.
|Coconuts grow all over the tropics.|