COCOANUT PALM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 June 1940, Page 3

COCOANUT PALM

DISPERSAL BY OCEAN CURRENTS. Did you ever wonder how a cocoanut palm managed to grow on the desolate little coral atolls of the Pacific. How diet the seed come to these tiny reefs where the soil is scanty and fresh water scarce-.’ The cocoanut is really a remarkable tree, which gives its seeds a special ‘■send-off" with the result that they can make long sea voyages. It flourishes, as you know, not only on the islands, but on the coasts of tropical countries, and for the dispersal of its seeds it depends on the ocean currents. The cocoanuts fall into the sea and are swept away to equally unfriendly shores. But they are so well provided for by their parents that when they are cast adrift they can make a start almost anywhere they are washed ashore by the waves.

The complete fruit or nut, when it leaves the palm tree, is very big and comprises a great deal of other material besides the young plant, which, of course, has not yet started to grow. In all, its outer husk consists of three distinct parts. First a thin waterproof coat which keeps everything inside snug-and dry; then a thick wrapping of brown fibre, which causes the nut to float buoyantly. Usually both these layers have been removed from the cocoanuts that are sold in shops because the brown fibre —commonly known as oakum, but more correctly coir—is useful for many purposes, such as the making of doormats and the caulking or filling in of cracks between the planks of wooden ships. The third coat is what we call the “shell'’ of the nut. Inside this, as you know, we find a thickish layer of white, edible substance, with about a third of a pint of watery fluid in the hollow centre.

The young plant is also inside the shell: but at this stage it is small and difficult to distinguish from its food supply, which is the while substance we call cocoanut. When, however, the whole contrivance is washed . up on some reef or beach, and the young plant starts to grow, it creeps out through a small, soft spot which you rmiy find on the eye of the shell.