Tropicos | Name - !Cocos L.

!Cocos L.

Flora Data (Last Modified On 10/24/2012)

Genus	COCOS L.
PlaceOfPublication	Sp. P1. 1188. 1753.
Description	Trees with single usually leaning or oblique trunk becoming nude and ringed, feather-leaved, spineless, monoecious: spadices interfoliar, shorter than the leaves, included at first within striate woody but not sulcate or furrowed large cymbas, the inner and longer one of which may persist as a dead object even after the fruit is grown; nodifronds reduced to scale-like bracts 2-4 cm. long that may have more or less- perished by fruiting time: flowers staminate and pistillate, one of the latter normally standing between two of the others near the base of the strand or rachilla but the upper part of the strand staminate and many strands wholly -staminate: fruit a great heavy indehiscent fibrous husk containing 1 hard-shelled nut that bears 3 prominent pores or micropyles at the end opposite the attach- ment to the tree, part of the contents remaining liquid; embryo basal; 3 inner envelopes of the staminate flowers much exceeding the 3 outer ones or calyx and lightly imbricate; envelopes of pistillate flowers very broad, striate, strongly imbricate.
Note	As now defined, the genus is monotypic.
Distribution	Species of the western hemisphere formerly referred to it are segregated into other genera, none of which is known to be native in Panama.