Polynesian researches. 
S69 
The juice assumes a whitish colour^ and a sharper 
taste. It is now called omoto, and is not so much used. 
If allowed to hang two or three months longer on the 
tree^ the outside skin becomes yellow and brown^ the 
shell hardens, the kernel increases to an inch or an 
inch and a quarter in thickness, and the liquid is reduced 
to less than half a pint. It is now called and, after 
hanging some months on the tree, falls to the ground. 
The hard nut is sometimes broken in two and broiled, 
or eaten as taken from the tree, but is generally used in 
making oil. 
If the cocoa-nut be kept long after it is fully 
ripe, a white, sweet, spongy substance is formed in 
the inside, originating at the inner end of the germ 
which is enclosed in the kernel, immediately opposite one 
of the three apertures or eyes, in the sharpest end of the 
shell. This fibrous sponge ultimately absorbs the water, 
and fills the concavity, dissolving the hard kernel, and 
combining it with its own substance, so that the shell, 
instead of containing a kernel and milk, encloses only a 
soft cellular substance. While this truly wonderful 
process is going on within the nut, a single bud or 
shoot, of a white colour but hard texture, forces its way 
through one of the holes in the shell, perforates the 
tough fibrous husk, and, after rising some inches, begins 
to unfold its pale green leaves to the light and the air; 
at this time, also, two thick white fibres, originating in 
the same point, push away the stoppers or covering from 
the other two holes in the shell, pierce the husk in an 
opposite direction, and finally penetrate the ground. 
If allowed to remain, the shell, which no knife would 
cut, and which a saw would scarcely penetrate, is burst 
by an expansive power, generated within itself; the 
3 B 
