Coyol

Description:

A. aculeata is a palm tree between 13 and 20 m in height and 3 to 4.5 m in diameter cup with one or more rarely several stems of about 2-3 dm in diameter, covered with a smooth bark and dark endowed with strong bones and straight up to 15 cm long. The root system is extensive and profound. Displays persistent leaves, pinnate, with numerous leaflets born in different planes, light green, very glabrous, with hard and thorny spine, 1.5 to 3.5 m long. The spathe is also very thorny. The flowers are pale spadices inflorescences yellow or brown, which appear in early summer. They are monoecious, with male flowers located at the top of the spadix and female at the bottom. The fruit is a globose drupe, which appear from 4 to even 14 bunches per copy; is 3-4 cm diameter. The pericarp or hull is smooth, green, being brown or yellow when ripe; It is brittle and easy peel; mesocarp, fibrous consistency, rich in carotene, yellow and very pleasant fragrance, is edible, with a flavor reminiscent of coconut. The seed consists of a thick, hard exocarp, blackish with three equatorial pores and a smooth endocarp dark outside and white inside color, where the embryo, also edible, very appreciated by insects, animals and being human. The cycle lasts fruits 13-14 months to mature in late summer.

Habitat:

from southern Mexico to northwestern Costa Rica . Also in South America in northern Colombia , southern Brazil , Paraguay , eastern Bolivia and northern Argentina . It has also been collected on the island of Saint Lucia in the Lesser Antilles

Notes:

the fruits are hard to dry thin shell on the outside, the pulpy part is slippery fibrous consistency within the hard and dense coconut that protects white fleshy fruit rich in oil. difficult to peel.