Page:The coco palm by Dahlgren, B. E. (Bror Eric).djvu/11

Rh 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-pollinated. 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 dimensions. As the coconut matures, the outer envelope begins to turn brown and to shrink. With the shrinkage the well-known, roughly triangular shape of the fruit becomes emphasized.

A full-sized fruit cluster consists of twelve to