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Coconuts & Trivia
Coconut fruits are drupes, with the outer layers of the husk
representing the exocarp and mesocarp. The "shell" of the de-husked coconut that one buys in the store is the endocarp, with the seed inside. Botanical trivia: Coconut endosperm starts out as a liquid--lots of nuclei, no cell walls--and gradually solidifies into the white "meat." There's a little embryo in there that will emerge from one of the "eyes" in the endocarp. Plant scientists studying growth regulators and embryo development tried squirting hundreds and hundreds of things into their cell cultures. On a whim, someone tried coconut milk. Pow! Results. Since then, several hundred cytokinin derivatives have been isolated from coconut milk. See: http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e31/31c.htm Monique Reed in cold and wet Texas A&M So what *is* the seed in the coconut fruit? Just the embryo? |
#2
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Coconuts & Trivia
Sounds about right.
The terminology of fruits seems pretty esoteric (one would almost sympathize with cereoid with his banana, regarded by some as a pepo but usually as just a berry). Since you have all this stuff ready at your fingertips, maybe you'd like to comment on arilloids and the difference between an aril (as in Taxus ) and an arillode (as in Garcinia) with apparently both occurring in Myristica, not to mention other forms of arilloids It is pretty weird that in the Gymnosperms which are not supposed to have fruits there are such things as Taxus and Torreya with both having something very fruitlike surrounding the seeds. PvR (weather here is pleasant, well above freezing point and raining only part of the day) Monique Reed schreef Coconut fruits are drupes, with the outer layers of the husk representing the exocarp and mesocarp. The "shell" of the de-husked coconut that one buys in the store is the endocarp, with the seed inside. Botanical trivia: Coconut endosperm starts out as a liquid--lots of nuclei, no cell walls--and gradually solidifies into the white "meat." There's a little embryo in there that will emerge from one of the "eyes" in the endocarp. Plant scientists studying growth regulators and embryo development tried squirting hundreds and hundreds of things into their cell cultures. On a whim, someone tried coconut milk. Pow! Results. Since then, several hundred cytokinin derivatives have been isolated from coconut milk. See: http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e31/31c.htm Monique Reed in cold and wet Texas A&M |
#3
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Coconuts & Trivia
In article ,
Monique Reed wrote: Coconut fruits are drupes, with the outer layers of the husk representing the exocarp and mesocarp. The "shell" of the de-husked coconut that one buys in the store is the endocarp, with the seed inside. Botanical trivia: Coconut endosperm starts out as a liquid--lots of nuclei, no cell walls--and gradually solidifies into the white "meat." There's a little embryo in there that will emerge from one of the "eyes" in the endocarp. G'day Monique, Thank you for the response. One further query: In my experience with coconuts, the fully grown but still immature fruit have the best juice for drinking, and the "flesh" or "meat" is rather gelatinous. Freshly fallen mature fruit also have quite acceptable juice for drinking, but the "flesh" [endosperm] is by this time quite hard and almost brittle. Do you have any idea what changes have occurred in the juice in this process of maturation? Clearly, not all of it solidifies. Plant scientists studying growth regulators and embryo development tried squirting hundreds and hundreds of things into their cell cultures. On a whim, someone tried coconut milk. Pow! Results. Since then, several hundred cytokinin derivatives have been isolated from coconut milk. See: http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e31/31c.htm Monique Reed in cold and wet Texas A&M So what *is* the seed in the coconut fruit? Just the embryo? Cheers, Phred. -- LID |
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