7 palms 1 nut – Rarotonga, Gerald McCormack
Gerald McCormack, CINHT
On Rarotonga it is sometimes claimed that the seven palms east of the Avarua roundabout grew from one seednut. On Aitutaki it is claimed that the six palms at the Visitor Centre grew from one seednut. Are these claims fact or fiction?
Both curiosities are now gone but were present at the time this article was written in 2003.
A coconut has three pores at the base and, typically, a lone sprout emerges from the single soft pore. Sometimes the embryo forms a twin and two sprouts emerge through the soft pore. On very rare occasions, as once on a Lever Brothers plantation in the Solomons, an embryo developed under each of the three pores and each embryo twinned to give rise to six shoots – although only four survived. Continue reading →
