The cocotero is the ubiquitous tree of Paraguay. There may be more graceful trees and there may be trees with more edible fruits but it is the tree many think of first when describing Paraguayan trees.
No scene or image of Paraguay would be complete without one and outside of Asunción it is hard to look anywhere without spotting one. Even one of the junior school text books is named after the cocotero.
It is a type of palm found throughout South America but it’s commonness in Paraguay in particular has aquired for it the name Coco Paraguayo. Across it’s range there are several local names but there is agreed common name and no name at all in English. There the only title available is it’s scientific name of Acrocomia Aculeata. Needless to say I have never heard one refered to as such.
As with with all palms it has a straight fiberous trunk which can grow to in excess of 20 metres. Being a palm there are no branches just a mass of fronds sprouting from it’s summit. These grow from the center with the outer fronds gradually dying and falling to the ground.
The Cocotero much as it may be loved is not a tree for treehuggers. The trunk and fronds are both lined with sharp spines which can grow several inches in length. In addition to their sharpness these are dangerous in that the tips are prone to snap of inside anything they pierce from where they are difficult and painful to remove.
The tree does have it’s fruits. Yellow scented blossom which is most common in summer, and so part of every Paraguayan nativity scene turns into large bunches of nuts.
These little balls are about 3cm in diameter and hang in great bunches from the fruiting fronds. They take just a short while to mature into hard ripe nuts.
This abundance of fruit is not allowed to go to waste. The flesh is edible but each nut contains very little and it is rather a lot of work to obtain such a small reward. If ever there was an extreme shortage of food it could be used as a famine food but that is about all.
Instead the nuts are collected and processed to produce coconut oil which is then turned into soap, beauty products, cooking products or anything else where a use for coconut oil can be found.
On the outskirts of Piribebuy is a factory for processing the locally collected nuts and in season once the nuts have been harvested it fills the air all around with the smell of the cocos. It is smelt long before it is seen.
The harvesting of the nuts is still done in traditional way. First with a sharp knife attatched to a bamboo pole the bunches of nuts are cut from the tree. These are left to lie on the ground for a few days before being shaken from the fruiting fronds and collected into large piles. The harvested nuts are then sold by the box load at an agreed price to a middle man with a lorry who will once he has a full cargo sell them onto the factory. The value of the nuts is not high, but they grow without any tending and only take a few days a year to collect.
In addition to the nuts use is found for all of the tree other than the dried fronds. The trunks grow straight and provide cheap timber. It is not the most hardy wood so only really suitable for temporary buildings, but is in plentiful supply. In addition the covers of the fruiting fronds make ideal kindling for the wood or charcol fires by which many families still cook.
These trees are therefore an important part of the culture, landscape and economy of Paraguay and are a commodity that is never in short supply.
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