Coconut pearl
The coconut pearl is alleged to be a coconut-produced gemstone. Claimed to be the rarest botanical gem in the world,[1] the coconut pearl supposedly grows inside the coconut.[2] However, the existence of these pearls is in dispute, and some claim that published photos are hoaxes.[3]
Wayne's Word, the source of much of the descriptive text and photographs used to illustrate coconut pearls on the Internet, writes that "several botany textbooks flatly state that coconut pearls are a hoax because proof of their existence is totally unfounded" and "I prematurely published an on-line note about this "pearl" [The Maharaja coconut pearl, on display at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida] in 1996 before I discovered that it did not come from a coconut."[4] They form in roughly one in every million coconuts according to the Ripley's believe it or not daily calendar.
References
- ↑ Armstrong, Wayne P. (August 1996). "The Coconut Pearl". Coconut Museum. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
- ↑ Reginald Child. "Coconuts". 2nd ed. London: Longman Group Ltd. 1974.
- ↑ "Botanical Jewelry Necklaces & Bracelets Made From Plants". Wayne's Word: An Online Textbook of Natural History. 2000. Retrieved 16 November 2008.
- ↑ "The Coconut Pearl". Wayne's Word. Retrieved 9 December 2010.
Further reading
- David Fairchild. "Garden Islands of the Great East". Scribner: New York, 1948. pp. 124–5.
- FWT Hunger. "Cocos nucifera". Amsterdam, 1920. pp. 244–50.
- Hunger, F. W. T. (24 January 1925). "Nature and Origin of Coco-Nut Pearls". Nature 115 (2882): 138–9. doi:10.1038/115138a0. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
- "Quick Quiz" Action Comics 155: 34 (April 1951)
