Tropical

Coconut trees grow to willowy heights, their slender trunks obedient to the prevailing winds. I think they grow so tall so they can protect their fruits from unscrupulous poachers. If you can climb all the way to the top then you may pick the fruit, drink the juice and eat the meat. If you can't shinny up the tree, then you may just wait until the ripe and dried coconuts drop to the ground below. But by then they would only be good for cooking.

Coconuts are strong and pliable. I have never seen a coconut snap while being blown every which way by a passing typhoon. They just dance and sway like roosters in a cock fight. If the ground they grow on gives way, the trees may slant close to the ground but then will straighten back up their crown and reach out toward the waiting sky. Coconuts grow taller and taller mostly unnoticed. They keep growing; they seem timeless. When its time for the coconut to die the natives take its trunk to create walking canes, boat paddles, oars, batons, and other strong dowel shaped rods out of its trunk core.

Just as the fruits are used for many purposes, even the fronds of coconuts are very useful. The frond leaves can be woven and interlaced so that the whole frond can then be hung as a hut siding, or the roof of a shed, or room divider, or laid atop a boat like a tarp. The leaves may also be taken individually and used to line the bottom of clay pots while cooking rice and other vayands. The coconut leaf imparts an aroma and flavor to the cooked food that is unique.

At dusk the coconut fronds seem to droop as if in preparation for their passage through the dark of night. Trees growing closer to the water's edge, specially the younger and much shorter ones yield to the invading crabs and birds seeking shelter. Sometimes snakes even make it to the crown. The Rhinoceros beetle is one beetle than can be a coconut killer. With its hard horns it can burrow deep into the coconuts' crown and infest it eventually killing the tree. It is always a sad sight to see a tall, majestic coconut tree felled by a lowly, overgrown, inconsiderate dunglike beetle. The coconut readily gives shelter to the beetle not realizing it is also giving up its life in the process. In the end, the coconut tree looks like a leafless stake stuck in the ground.