Some of my earliest memories revolve around my family’s relocation to Karachi. The first image that returns to me is the view from my house in one of the city’s oldest localities: an abundance of coconut trees.

Later, I would learn that, until a few decades earlier, a lake was a stone’s throw from that place. Coconuts that fell from the trees would float on the water surface, drift to the other side of the lake and begin growing into trees. The lake is now under sand and concrete, but the coconut trees remain. Over the years, with the proliferation of houses, the number of coconut trees has diminished significantly. Many of them, however, still stand, bearing fruit.

Scientifically known as Cocos nucifera L, the coconut belongs to the Arecaceae family of palm trees. While coco is a Spanish word, meaning “monkey-faced” or “grinning face”, the nucifera in Latin means “nut-bearing”. Even though the fruit is named coconut, it is technically not a nut, but a drupe. Drupes are fruits that........

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