184 THE MILK IN THE COCO-NUT 



state there is generally only one, though occasionally we 

 find an almond with two — a philipa?na, as we commonly 

 call it — ^just to keep in memory the original arrangement 

 of its earlier ancestors. The reason for this is that plants 

 whose fruits have no special protection for their seeds are 

 obliged to produce a great many of them at once, in order 

 that one seed in a thousand may finally survive the on- 

 slaughts of their Argus-eyed enemies ; but when they learn 

 to protect themselves by hard coverings from birds and 

 beasts, they can dispense with some of these supernumerary 

 seeds, and put more nutriment into each one of those that 

 they still retain. Compare, for example, the innumerable 

 small round seedlets of the poppyhead with tlie solitary 

 large and richly stored seed of the walnut, or the tiny black 

 specks of mustard and cress with the single compact and 

 well-filled seed of the filbert and the acorn. To the very 

 end, however, most nuts begin in the flower as if they 

 meant to produce a whole capsuleful of small unstored and 

 unprotected seeds, like their original ancestors ; it is only 

 at the last moment that they recollect themselves, suppress 

 all their ovules except one, and store that one with all the 

 best and cihest food-stuffs at their disposal. The nuts, in 

 fact, have learned by long experience that it is better to be 

 the only son and heir of a wealthy house, set up in life 

 with a good capital to begin upon, than to be one of a poor 

 family of thirteen needy and unprovided children. 



Now, the coco-nuts are descended from a great tribe — 

 the palms and lilies — which have as their main distinguish- 

 ing peculiarity the arrangement of parts in their flowers 

 and fruits by threes each. For example, in the most 

 typical flowers of this great group, there are three green 

 outer calyx-pieces, three bright-coloured petals, three long 

 outer stamens, three short inner stamens, three valves to 

 the capsule, and three seeds or three rows of seeds in each 



