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]

References

1. ^ Armstrong, Wayne P. (August 1996). "The Coconut Pearl". Coconut Museum. http://www.coconut.com/features/cocopearl.html. Retrieved 2 October 2010. 
2. ^ Reginald Child. "Coconuts". 2nd ed. London: Longman Group Ltd. 1974.
3. ^ "Botanical Jewelry Necklaces & Bracelets Made From Plants". Wayne's Word: An Online Textbook of Natural History. 2000. http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0901.htm. Retrieved 16 November 2008. 
4. ^ "The Coconut Pearl". http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0601c.htm. 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. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v115/n2882/index.html#af1. Retrieved 2009-01-09.