Coir - Coconut Fiber

Although most residents of the temperate zone are familiar with sweetened, grated coconut and its use in cookies and confections, most would be unfamiliar with the tremendous importance of other uses of coconut in tropical areas.  In the tropics, coconut and bamboo are thought of as two of the most useful and important plants.  This shows that the importance of plants cannot be based upon temperate zone standards or biases.

Most people are familiar with the seed of coconut, which is all you ever see in the markets.  Actually this consists of a stony inner fruit wall with the seed inside, rather like a peach pit.  The seed is largely hollow with a solid layer of endosperm around the outside.  Endosperm is a special tissue providing nutrition for the embryo, the baby plant.  The cylindrical coconut embryo will be found embedded in the endosperm under one of the three "eyes".  At one time the entire hollow seed was filled with liquid endosperm.  Coconut or copra, the product, is shredded endosperm.  Coconut endosperm is also an source of a high melting point fat, an important cooking fat in the tropics. 

Less familiar to people who have never picked a coconut is the fibrous fruit surrounding the seed.  The fruit is adapted for dispersal by water, and coconut seeds can float in seawater for months and the seed remain viable.  Thus coconuts dispersed and colonized tropical beaches around the Pacific; later humans carried coconut to virtually all tropical areas.  The coarse structural fibers in coconut fruits, called coir, are composed of vascular bundles and are similar to the rather stiff, hard fibers obtained from monocot leaves (manila hemp, sisal, henequen).  Because they are tough and naturally resistant to seawater, coconut fibers are used to make floor mats, heavy cord, and the coarse nets used in shellfish aquaculture.  You might have a coconut fiber mat by your door.

The following photo essay shows you how these fibers are processed in the southern Indian state of Kerala, which means land of coconuts.

Coconuts being cultivated and their fruits transported along a river in southern India.	Coconut palm in fruit.	Coconut endosperm or copra drying in the sun.
Coconut fruits prior to processing.	Retting coconut fibers.	Coir fibers drying in the sun.
Bundled coir fibers.	Coir fibers loosely spun.	Coir cords being transported along a canal.

BACK to Photo Essay & Course Syllabus directory.

BACK to Armstrong's Main Web Page.