Charting the many and varied ways the coconut has shaped and continues to shape our world.

Such disparate characters as an English earl, an American president, Imelda Marcus, a celebrated German nudist, Captain Bligh of the Bounty, and a billion Hindus feature in this fascinating history of the coconut. The coconut has long been the unseen player in the endeavours of industrialists and bomb makers, physicians and silversmiths, smugglers and snake charmers.

The millions of gas masks produced in readiness for World War II had filters packed with coconut charcoal; 16thcentury European craftsmen gilded coconuts with silver and gold; early seafarers were sustained its fresh water and nutritious flesh, using the husk to make the rope for the ships’ rigging and more of it to arrest the inevitable leaks in the ships’ hulls.

Today, the world and his visitors wipe their feet on coir matting and coconut-based products line the shelves of supermarkets and health food shops. This is the remarkable history of the most widely used plant nature has conceived.