剑桥雅思13Test3Passage1阅读原文翻译 The coconut palm

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剑桥雅思13Test3Passage1阅读原文翻译 The coconut palm 椰子树

剑桥雅思13 Test3 Passage1阅读原文翻译

第1段

For millennia, the coconut has been central to the lives of Polynesian and Asian peoples. In the western world, on the other hand, coconuts have always been exotic and unusual, sometimes rare. The Italian merchant traveller Marco Polo apparently saw coconuts in South Asia in the late 13th century, and among the mid-14th-century travel writings of Sir John Mandeville there is mention of ‘great Notes of Ynde’ (great Nuts of India). Today, images of palm-fringed tropical beaches are cliches in the west to sell holidays, chocolate bars, fizzy drinks and even romance.

一千年来，椰子一直都是波利尼西亚人和亚洲人生活的中心。但在西方世界，椰子一直都是一种外来的、不同寻常的物种，有时十分罕见。意大利商人旅行家马可波罗在13世纪末期的时候显然在南亚见过椰子。在14世纪中期John Mandeville的游记中也提到“印度的巨大坚果”。如今，棕榈点缀的热带沙滩的形象已经成为西方售卖假期、巧克力棒、气泡饮料、甚至爱情故事的固定手法。

第2段

Typically, we envisage coconuts as brown cannonballs that, when opened, provide sweet white flesh. But we see only part of the fruit and none of the plant from which they come. The coconut palm has a smooth, slender, grey trunk, up to 30 metres tall. This is an important source of timber for building houses, and is increasingly being used as a replacement for endangered hardwoods in the furniture construction industry. The trunk is surmounted by a rosette of leaves, each of which may be up to six metres long. The leaves have hard veins in their centres which, in many parts of the world, are used as brushes after the green part of the leaf has been stripped away. Immature coconut flowers are tightly clustered together among the leaves at the top of the trunk. The flower stems may be tapped for their sap to produce a drink, and the sap can also be reduced by boiling to produce a type of sugar used for cooking.

通常来说，我们想象中的椰子是棕色的炮弹形状，打开的时候会有香甜的白色果肉。但我们只看到这种水果的一部分，并没有看到结出它们的植物。椰子树有着光滑细长的灰色树干，可以长到30米高。它是建造房屋的重要木材来源，并越来越多的被用作家具建造行业频临灭绝的硬木的替代品。树干被莲座状的叶子包裹，每一片最长可以达到6米。叶子中心有着坚硬的脉络。在世界许多地方，当叶子的绿色部分被剥离之后，它们被当作刷子使用。尚未成熟的椰子花紧紧的聚集在树干顶部的叶子中。敲打花茎得到的汁液可以用来生产饮料，也可以通过煮沸浓缩来生产用于烹饪的某种糖。

第3段

Coconut palms produce as many as seventy fruits per year, weighing more than a kilogram each. The wall of the fruit has three layers: a waterproof outer layer, a fibrous middle layer and a hard, inner layer. The thick fibrous middle layer produces coconut fibre, ‘coir’, which has numerous uses and is particularly important in manufacturing ropes. The woody innermost layer, the shell, with its three prominent ‘eyes’, surrounds the seed. An important product obtained from the shell is charcoal, which is widely used in various industries as well as in the home as a cooking fuel. When broken in half, the shells are also used as bowls in many parts of Asia.

椰子每年可以生产70颗果实，每个重量超过1公斤。果实的外壁有三层：起防水作用的外层，纤维状的中层，以及坚硬的内层。厚实的纤维状中层出产椰子纤维，“coir”。它拥有广泛的用途，在绳索制造业尤其重要。带有三个突出的“眼睛”的木制最内层椰壳包裹着种子。从椰壳中获得的一项重要产品是木炭。它被广泛应用于各种产业，也可以作为烹饪燃料用于家中。在亚洲的许多地方，椰壳也被一分为二，当作碗来使用。

第4段

Inside the shell are the nutrients (endosperm) needed by the developing seed. Initially, the endosperm is a sweetish liquid, coconut water, which is enjoyed as a drink, but also provides the hormones which encourage other plants to grow more rapidly and produce higher yields. As the fruit matures, the coconut water gradually solidifies to form the brilliant white, fat-rich, edible flesh or meat. Dried coconut flesh, ‘copra’, is made into coconut oil and coconut milk, which are widely used in cooking in different parts of the world, as well as in cosmetics. A derivative of coconut fat, glycerine, acquired strategic importance in a quite different sphere, as Alfred Nobel introduced the world to his nitroglycerine-based invention: dynamite.

椰壳内部是发育中的种子所需要的营养物质（胚乳）。起初，胚乳是香甜的液体，即椰汁。它虽然被当作饮品享用，但也提供促进其他植物快速生长和产量提升的荷尔蒙。随着果实的成熟，椰汁逐渐凝固，形成亮白、富含脂肪、可食用的果肉。干椰子肉-“copra”-被制成椰油和椰奶。它们被广泛用于世界各地的烹饪，并添加到化妆品中。随着阿尔弗雷德·诺贝尔为世界带来其基于硝化甘油的发明-炸药，椰脂的衍生物-丙三醇-在不同领域取得战略性的重要地位。

第5段

Their biology would appear to make coconuts the great maritime voyagers and coastal colonizers of the plant world. The large, energy-rich fruits are able to float in water and tolerate salt, but cannot remain viable indefinitely; studies suggest after about 110 days at sea they are no longer able to germinate. Literally cast onto desert island shores, with little more than sand to grow in and exposed to the full glare of the tropical sun, coconut seeds are able to germinate and root. The air pocket in the seed, created as the endosperm solidifies, protects the embryo. In addition, the fibrous fruit wall that helped it to float during the voyage stores moisture that can be taken up by the roots of the coconut seedling as it starts to grow.

椰子的生物特性似乎使其成为植物世界伟大的航海者和海岸的殖民者。富含能量的巨大果实可以漂浮在水中，并且不受盐的影响。不过它并不能无限存活。研究发现，在海水中漂浮大约110天之后，它们就不再能发芽。即便被抛到荒岛，只有沙地可以生长，并暴露在威力全开的热带阳光之下，椰子种子依然可以生根发芽。种子中由于胚乳凝固而形成的气穴可以保护胚芽。此外，在航行过程中帮助它漂浮的纤维状果实壁储存了水分。这些水分可以在椰子幼苗开始生长时被根系所吸收。

第6段

There have been centuries of academic debate over the origins of the coconut. There were no coconut palms in West Africa, the Caribbean or the east coast of the Americas before the voyages of the European explorers Vasco da Gama and Columbus in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. 16th century trade and human migration patterns reveal that Arab traders and European sailors are likely to have moved coconuts from South and Southeast Asia to Africa and then across the Atlantic to the east coast of America. But the origin of coconuts discovered along the west coast of America by 16th century sailors has been the subject of centuries of discussion. Two diametrically opposed origins have been proposed: that they came from Asia, or that they were native to America. Both suggestions have problems. In Asia, there is a large degree of coconut diversity and evidence of millennia of human use – but there are no relatives growing in the wild. In America, there are close coconut relatives, but no evidence that coconuts are indigenous. These problems have led to the intriguing suggestion that coconuts originated on coral islands in the Pacific and were dispersed from there.

关于椰子起源的学术争论已经进行了几个世纪。在15世纪末和16世纪初欧洲探险者达·伽马和哥伦布航行之前，非洲西部，加勒比海或者美洲东岸都没有椰子树的痕迹。16世纪的贸易和人类迁徙模式表明，很有可能是阿拉伯商人和欧洲水手将椰子从南亚和东南亚带往非洲，然后穿过大西洋达到美洲的东海岸。但是，16世纪水手们沿着美洲西岸发现的椰子源自何处成为几个世纪以来讨论的主题。人们提出两个截然相反的起源地：它们要么来自亚洲，要么是美洲的本土植物。两种说法都有问题。在亚洲，椰子的多样性程度很高，并且有数千年人类使用的证据-但并没有野生的亲缘植物。在美洲，有跟叶子十分亲近的亲缘植物，但没有证据表明椰子是本土生长的。这些问题催生出一种有趣的推断，椰子源于太平洋中的珊瑚岛，从那里散播开来。

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