841

14: Vegetable oils and fats

Attalea cohune Mart.

PALMAE

Orbignya cohune (Mart.) Dahlgren ex Standl.

Cohune palm, manaca, corozo (En, Sp).

Attalea cohune is a native of the Caribbean littoral from Mexico to Panama, extending to northern South America. In Central America it is also often cultivated; in other tropical regions only occasionally.

The main product from the cohune palm is the kernel oil which is similar to or even finer than coconut oil and is used in baking, cooking, illumination and in making margarine and soap. Unripe kernels are sometimes used in cooking as a substitute for milk. Ripe ones are a snack food. The epicarp and endocarp are used as fuel, damaged kernels and the residue after oil extraction as animal feed. Leaves are used for thatching, building houses and temporary shelters and for making hats, umbrellas, ties and fans. The 'cabbage' can be eaten raw, cooked or pickled and palm tops are tapped for palm wine. Orbignya cohune serves as a source of germplasm for improving other oil-yielding palms. Its ornamental value is important: it is by far the largest and most majestic of all the palms of Central America.

Unarmed, unbranched, monoecious palm, 9—20 m tall, trunk thick, bearing persistent leaf bases above. Leaves numerous, plume-like and graceful in spite of their great size, up to 10(—18) m x 2(—2.5) m, recurving, with numerous, elongate, very narrow segments. Staminate inflorescences 1—1.5 m long, bearing numerous flowers; fruiting panicles very large and heavy, pendent, containing often 800—1000 fruits. Fruit a drupe, resembling a small coconut, about 6 cm long. Seed enclosed in a very hard endocarp. Attalea cohune is an upper canopy palm thriving in various habitats which range from swampy, wet lowlands to upland areas up to 600 m altitude. It grows abundantly in well-drained, moist, dark, organic surface soils over a deep friable subsoil, but occurs on all soil types. Cohune palm is propagated by seed that normally remains viable for 6 months after harvest; seed is planted 5 cm deep, preferably in a 3:1:1 mixture of loam, manure, and sand; seedlings are transplanted, preferably at a wide spacing of about 100 plants/ha. Annual production of a mature palm reaches 1000—2000 fruits, in total weighing about 100 kg, resulting in 10 t/ha for 100 palms. Yields vary from year to year and in Central America it is often difficult to maintain a regular fruit supply to oil mills. Cohune oil is a yellowish, non-drying oil similar to coconut oil but with a lower melting point and a smokier taste. Cohune seed contains approximately 7% protein and 52% fat, the other parts of the fruit approximately 1% protein and 0.5% fat. The fatty acid composition of cohune oil is approximately caprylic acid 7%, capric acid 7%, lauric acid 46%, myristic acid 16%, palmitic acid 10%, stearic acid 3%, oleic acid 10% and linoleic acid 1%. In order for this palm to be fully and profitably exploited there must be a ready market for its products as well as a large production area. It is questionable whether cohune palm is also promising for South-East Asia: it will grow well, but many alternatives are available for the oil and other products.
The related babassu palm Attalea speciosa Mart. ex Spreng. (synonyms: Orbignya oleifera Burret, Orbignya phalerata Mart.; its nomenclature is confusing in the literature) is another source of edible oil in Latin America. Initially, fruits were collected only from the wild. Palms retained in clearings for shifting cultivation developed gradually into babassu forests. At present in Brazil the babassu area occupies some 200 000 ha. The oil extracted from the kernel is rich in lauric acid. The potential of babassu palm for South-East Asia is being investigated in Malaysia.

[5] Arnason, J.T., Lambert, J.D. & Gale, J., 1984. Mineral cycling in a tropical palm forest. Plant and Soil 79: 211—225.
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[36] Ewel, J.J., 1976. Litter fall and leaf decomposition in a tropical forest succession in Eastern Guatemala. Journal of Ecology 64: 293—308.
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B. Umali

Umali, B.E., 2001. Attalea cohune Mart.. In: van der Vossen, H.A.M. and Umali, B.E. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 14: Vegetable oils and fats. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea