Hala fruit (Pandanus tectorius), the fruit of the screwpine or pandanus, is a large segmented ball built from dozens of tightly packed woody wedges called keys or phalanges. Ripening from green to brilliant orange and red, it is a foundational food of Pacific atolls and coral islands — chewed raw for the sweet fibrous pulp at each key's base, cooked, or pounded and dried into a keeping paste that sustained Micronesian communities through lean seasons.