Floating seeds has helped the coconut to spread to lots of far reaching places.

To facilitate this they have also become slow-germinating to avoid the new palm to sprout in the middle of the ocean.

Since coconut palms are super-useful for humans, providing materials for housing, clothes, rope as well as food, we have bred and planted quick-germinating types of coconut palms. These cultivated “niu via” type coconuts are often seen further inland where humans have helped carry them, while the wild “niu kafa” is mostly located on beaches where it floated on its own. There are downsides to adaptation, and the coconuts “choices” means that it can’t be carried by birds to new places like many other plants.

Other plants that spread by floating seeds are mangoes and sweet potatoes.

I did kinda wonder when I was little, how these trees just popped up on tiny islands with no other trees. That was fun to learn. I also learned what the coconut actually looks like when my dad brought one home, I just assumed they grew like the hard, bare, brown nuts we buy at the store, but that was so wrong. I would not have recognized a complete coconut as a coconut if I had not been told what it was, and I figure I’m not the only one, so I chose to draw both kinds in this one.

This page has an easy-to-read overview of research on coconut distribution patterns and how they are adapted to float in the ocean:

https://www2.palomar.edu/users/warmstrong/pldec398.htm

(last accessed: 13.07.2021)

this article discusses the differences between wild type and domesticated coconut palms, specifically germination rates:

https://academic.oup.com/aobpla/article/doi/10.1093/aobpla/pls045/178748

(last accessed: 13.07.2021)