Rumphius enumerates thirteen varieties of this palm, but many of these have now been placed under other genera, and Lindley resolves them into three species—­C. nucifera, the most generally diffused species, a native of the East Indies; and C. flexuosa and plumosa, natives of Brazil.  The trunk, which is supported by numerous, small fibrous roots, rises gracefully, with a slight inclination, from forty to sixty feet in height; it is cylindrical, of middling size, marked from the root upwards with unequal circles or rings, and is crowned by a graceful head of large leaves.  The terminal bud of this palm, as well as that of the cabbage palm (Euterpe montana), is used as a culinary vegetable.  The wood of the tree is known by the name of porcupine wood.  It is light and spongy, and, therefore, cannot be advantageously employed in the construction of ships or solid edifices, though it is used in building huts; vessels made of it are fragile and of little duration.  Its fruit, at different seasons, is in much request; when young, it is filled with a clear, somewhat sweet, and cooling fluid, which is equally refreshing to the native and the traveller.  When the nut becomes old, or attains its full maturity, the fluid disappears, and the hollow is filled by a sort of almond, which is the germinating organ.  This pulp or kernel, when cut in pieces and dried in the sun, is called copperah, and is eaten by the Malays, Coolies, and other natives, and from it a valuable species of oil is expressed, which is in great demand for a variety of purposes.  The refuse oil cake is called Poonae, and forms an excellent manure.

A calcareous concretion is sometimes found in the centre of the nut, to which peculiar virtues have been attributed.

Along the Gulf of Cariaco there are many large coco walks.  In moist and fertile ground it begins to bear abundantly the fourth year; but in dry soils it does not produce fruit until the tenth.  Its duration does not generally exceed 80 or 100 years, at which period its mean height is about 80 feet.  Throughout this coast a coco tree supplies annually about 100 nuts, which yield eight flascos of oil.  The flasco is sold for about 1s. 4d.  A great quantity is made at Cumana, and Humboldt frequently witnessed the arrival there of canoes containing 3,000 nuts.

Throughout the South Sea Islands, coco-nut palms abound, and oil may be obtained in various places.  Some of the uninhabited islands are covered with dense groves, and the ungathered nuts, which have fallen year after year, lie upon the ground in incredible quantities.  Two or three men, provided with the necessary apparatus for pressing out the oil, will, in the course of a week or two, obtain enough to load one of the large sea canoes.  Coco nut oil is now manufactured in different parts of the South Seas, and forms no small part of the traffic carried on with trading vessels.  A considerable quantity is annually exported from the Society Islands to Sydney.  They bottle it up in large bamboos, six or eight feet long, and these form part of the circulating medium of Tahiti.  The natives use the bruised fronds of Polypodium crassifolium to perfume this oil. Evodia triphylla, a favorite evergreen plant with the natives of the Polynesian Islands, is also used for this purpose.