226 Thiselton-Dyer. — Morphological Notes. 
Apparently in an earlier stage of development the endosperm is 
unconsolidated and gelatinous. Sir William Hooker says : ‘ Before the 
fruit has attained its perfect maturity, the interior . . . contains a substance 
like a white jelly, firm, transparent and sweet to the taste. A single Coco¬ 
nut holds, perhaps, three pints of this substance; but if kept a few days, it 
turns sour, thick and unpalatable, giving out a very disagreeable smell.’ 
Miss North gives a more graphic description: ‘The outer shell was green 
and heart-shaped ; only the inner shell was double, and full of white jelly, 
enough to fill the largest soup tureen.’ 1 And elsewhere, as quoted by Sir 
Henry Yule: ‘I ate some of the jelly from inside ... of the purest 
white and not badY The late General Gordon, who, as is well known, was 
deeply interested in the palm, on somewhat mystical grounds, informed me 
in a note: ‘ The nut when ripe is black and falls from the tree; the 
gelatinous jelly is then hard like ivory.’ It would be extremely interesting 
to trace the histological changes which accompany that of texture. 
Widely different statements have been made as to the time which the 
fruit takes to reach maturity. According to Sir William Hooker: ‘Twelve 
months elapse, from the time of the appearance of thegennen, before the 
fruits are fully ripe ; and they have been known to hang three years on the 
tree before falling on the ground.’ Mr. C. Button, who was at the time 
Conservator of Crown Lands and Forests, informed me in a letter that the 
period was much longer: ‘It remains seven years before arriving to its perfect 
maturity and falls to the ground. This experience has been several times 
made by me personally ; but the proprietors of Coco-de-mer trees generally 
break the fruit at about four years of age for commercial purposes, as the 
shell at that time is sufficiently hard.’ General Gordon also informed me 
that the ‘ fruit attains maturity in seven years ’. It looks as if the 
discrepancy had arisen from a confusion between the time at which the 
fruits are gathered and that at which they are really mature. 
Frequent attempts have been made to cultivate the Coco-de-mer in 
European botanic gardens, but with little success. For some years a plant, 
which I think was imported, existed in the Liverpool Botanic Garden. 
And a young plant was raised and perhaps still exists in the Jardin des 
Plantes. In 1889 I began a prolonged attempt to add it to the rich col¬ 
lection of palms at Kew. I was energetically assisted by Mr. C. Button, 
who sent us repeated consignments of mature nuts. Many failed to 
germinate at all: others did so, but only imperfectly ; others again sprouted 
satisfactorily, but only to end their existence by disaster almost suicidal. 
According to the Genera Plantarum , Lodoicea has the ‘ embryo 
basilaris, sinum spectans ’. But unless I am mistaken the sinus is the apex 
of the nut, and the embryo is therefore apical. In any case the sinus being 
open affords the embryo a free path for emergence. 
1 Recollections of a happy life, ii. 289. 2 Hobson-Jobson, 178. 
