LAUSR

Coconut (Cocos nucifera L., family Arecaceae) is a tropical, monospecific, perennial palm. It is monoecious and protandrous. Flowering and pollination biology studies carried out in the coconut in different countries, at different times of the year, and in different environmental conditions have given widely divergent results on every aspect of flowering and pollination. It has been found that the coconut palm shows the capacity to adapt its flowering and pollination biology to suit various environmental variables in order to ensure its successful pollination and seed setting. These include self pollination, cross pollination, wind pollination, insect pollination, changes in flowering biology even within an individual palm such as effecting variations in length and occurrence of male and female phases in flowering even with minor changes in temperature and rainfall. They appear to be an adaptive mechanism to ensure the successful survival of the species under natural conditions. It is therefore concluded that the coconut possesses an opportunistic flowering and pollinating system. This may be considered as an adaptive mechanism of the species to ensure its survival, possibly since the coconut palm is monospecific.