The Coco Palm 3 



The growing point of the tree is at the apex. The 

 terminal bud is always present, enveloped and shielded 

 by the bases of several young and unexpanded leaves 

 that make up the top of the plant. The flower-buds 

 are situated in the leaf-axils, one to each leaf. A 

 flower-bud on its first appearance is two or three feet 

 long, cylindrical and tapering. Its green color is due 

 to an enveloping sheath, the spathe. As the bud 

 swells with growth it bursts its envelope, the spathe 

 splitting lengthwise, revealing the flowering spike of 

 a pale straw color. In a few days this has freed itself 

 from its spathe and has become a fully expanded 

 branching spike, in general shape much like a gigantic 

 corn tassel. Each of its twenty to thirty branches is 

 closely set with prismatically compressed, small buds 

 of a pale straw color and of a horny texture. These 

 are the buds of the male flowers and soon begin to 

 open, usually a few at a time on each branch, after 

 which they fall off. Eventually there remains on the 

 flowering spike only the female flowers, each of the 

 size of a horse-chestnut and from the very first roughly 

 indicative of the shape of the fruit. While the male 

 flowers are rather perfect with free floral leaves, six 

 stamens and a rudimentary three-parted pistil, the 

 female coco palm flower seems to have suppressed all 

 frills to devote itself from the beginning exclusively 

 to the production of coconuts. The male flowers are 

 insect-visited, but the palm is apparently wind-pollin- 

 ated. Within a short time the young coconuts look 

 much like huge, green acorns. They grow rapidly and 

 in about a year they have attained their full dimen- 

 sions. As the coconut matures, the outer envelope 

 begins to turn brown and to shrink. With the shrink- 

 age the well-known, roughly triangular shape of the 

 fruit becomes emphasized. 



A full-sized fruit cluster consists of twelve to 



[11] 



