224 Thiselton-Dyer.—Morphological Notes. 
superficial characters of the palm with tolerable accuracy. He adds in a 
note that the description was communicated to the Academie des Sciences 
in 1773. Since Sonnerat’s time Lodoicea has been known to also grow in 
the neighbouring islands, Curieuse and Round. 
Gmelin in the thirteenth edition of the Systerna (p. 569), 1791, named 
it Cocos maldivica. But Giseke ( Prael . 1792, p. 88) correctly divined its 
affinities, naming it Borassns Sonnerati. Labillardiere created for it the 
genus Lodoicea. But this, though maintained, is only distinguished technically 
from Borassus by the numerous stamens and large fruit. 
It is not a little remarkable that our detailed knowledge of the mor¬ 
phology of a plant with so singular a history and such striking charac¬ 
teristics should still be very imperfect. But that this is the case is evident 
from the description given by Bentham and Hooker in the Genera Plantarnni , 
iii. 939. I had hoped to do something to remedy this, and had collected 
some material for the purpose. The necessary leisure to accomplish the 
task has, however, always been wanting, and I must content myself with 
some detached notes which may be useful to some one more fortunate. 
As long as the Coco-de-mer was only known from sea-borne specimens 
it was of course assumed that the Double coco-nut, as it was called, was the 
entire fruit. As soon as the palm producing it was discovered, it was 
at once obvious that this was not the case. The Coco-de-mer is in fact the 
stone of a gigantic drupe with a fibrous mesocarp. The complete fruit is 
rarely to be seen in Museums; but Kew possesses one, as well as a plaster 
model which the late General Gordon had made in the Seychelles and 
presented to it. The fruit is poorly figured by Sonnerat, but the best 
representations are in the fine series of pictures (Nos. 474-7 and 479) in the 
North Gallery at Kew, which Miss North visited the Seychelles in 1883 
for the purpose of painting. According to Sir William Hooker, it is ‘ often 
a foot and a half in length, weighing twenty or twenty-five pounds 
Sonnerat figures the drupe as ellipsoidal. This, if it ever occurs, except 
in the youngest stage, must be exceptional. The Genera Plantarnni, no 
doubt correctly, describes it as ‘ oblique obovoideus’. Miss North, quoted 
by Sir Henry Yule (Hobson-Jobson, p. 178), says: ‘the outer husk is 
shaped like a mango.’ It is clearly therefore usually unsymmetrical ; one 
side is somewhat flattened, and the other rounded. This arises from the 
fact that in the maturing ovary one carpel only usually develops. 
One point which seems to require further investigation is the number 
of primary component carpels, or at any rate of cells in the ovary. 
The Genera Plantarum says it is ‘ 3- rarius 2-4- loculare ’. The whole 
symmetry of the flower is ternary, with three stigmas in the female. This 
would imply three component carpels, and therefore a three-celled ovary. It 
is possible, though the point requires further investigation, that the dis¬ 
crepancy has been produced by the misinterpretation of sections containing 
