is a coconut a nut, a seed, or a fruit?

Though its name suggests that it is a nut, I've always regarded coconut as a fruit. When the coconut is young, it has properties like fruit, and as it matures, it becomes more nutty. But in fact it is not a nut or a fruit; it is a seed.

Unless it is picked, a matured coconut eventually drops from the tree. The fully developed hard shell does not crack easily. Dry and brown, the coconut may sit underneath the tree for months and appear as if it were dead, until one day a green shoot pushes its way out of the shell. The whole time the old coconut has been sitting under the tree, changes have been slowly taking place inside. At one end of the coconut (where the eyes are), an embryo starts growing, feeding off the juice and nutrition of the thick white flesh. This embryo develops into a creamy mass that gradually fills much of the empty space inside. It is good to eat – sweet, somewhat spongy and less fibrous than the matured meat.

The embryo eventually sprouts out of the shell and becomes a young coconut seedling. At this point, the plant can survive for several more weeks or months on the food and water inside as roots gradually develop and extend out of the shell to anchor the plant in the ground. Nutritious coconut meat can sustain life for a long time; one of my students, who is a horticulturist, has successfully used coconut milk to nurse seedlings of Coconutother plants in his greenhouse. Coconut palms lead a long productive life. They begin bearing fruits at the age of five to seven years and continue to do so until they are seventy to eighty years old.

As complete seed packages, coconuts have been known to travel to faraway lands to find new homesteads. Stories abound of coconuts floating their way across seas and oceans to be washed ashore on distant islands, rooting themselves in handsome groves to greet visiting humans in search of paradise. The dehusked coconuts you buy at the supermarket, however, are no longer productive seed packages. Once the husk is removed, the seed dies

It's basically all three. A green coconut with the flesh still on it is a fruit. The brown hard-shelled coconut is a nut. But, it can be considered the seed of the coconut fruit. Just like how almonds are nuts, but when they grow on the tree, they're encased in a green fleshy skin (almond fruit). When they ripen, the flesh dries up and splits, exposing the almond nut inside, which is the seed of the almond fruit.

a coconut looks like a big nut. It's tree started as a seed. The tree bears fruit called coconut.

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RE:

is a coconut a nut, a seed, or a fruit?

what is it?

ive heard its all three

All the sites say evidence for all 3 lol.

It is a fruity nut seed ;)

it's a fruit. it is the fruit of the coconut tree.

nut

all three, depends on stage of nut.

fruit.