_unisexual_ (monœcious or diœcious) with the usual diagram (Fig. 278); the perianth is inconspicuous, green or yellow, persistent, and more or less leathery or fleshy. 6, rarely 3 or many stamens. The 3 carpels remain either _distinct_ or form one, generally 3-locular, ovary. The style is short. There is _one ovule in each carpel_. Often during ripening 2 carpels with their ovules are aborted. The fruit is a _berry_, _drupe_ or _nut_, generally one-seeded, with a large horny or bony endosperm with hard thick-walled cells (_e.g._ Date-palm). In some (_e.g._ Cocoanut) it is thin-walled, soft, and oily; in several “ruminate.” When _germination_ commences in the Cocoanut, Date, etc., the apex of the cotyledon remains in the seed and developes into a spongy mass to withdraw the endosperm; in the Cocoanut it attains a considerable size (Fig. 299 _C_) and assumes the form of the fruit. The endosperm in the Cocoanut is hollow and the interior is filled with “milk.” In the Date-palm and the Vegetable-ivory (_Phytelephas_) the cell-walls of the hard endosperm serve as reserve material. =1.= PHŒNICEÆ. _Phœnix_ (Date-palm) has pinnate leaves with channeled leaflets and diœcious flowers with 8 free carpels, of which usually only one developes into a berry with membranous endocarp; the large seed has a deep furrow on the inner side, and horny endosperm. [Illustration: FIG. 297.--Inflorescence of a Palm with spathe. At the top ♂-, at the base ♀-flowers.] [Illustration: FIG. 298.--_Livistona australis._] =2.= SABALEÆ. These have fan-like leaves with channeled segments; flowers ☿ or polygamous, rarely diœcious, with 3 separate or only slightly united carpels, all of which are sometimes developed into fruits (berry or drupe, with thin stone).--_Chamærops_, the Dwarf-palm. The pericarp is externally fleshy, internally more fibrous, and provided with a membranous inner layer. The endosperm is ruminate (that is, the testa is several times deeply folded into the endosperm).--_Sabal_, _Copernicia_, _Livistona_ (Fig. 298), _Thrinax_, _Corypha_, _Brahea_, and others. [Illustration: FIG. 299.--_A_ Longitudinal section of a Cocoanut (diminished), the inner layer only (the stone) not being divided _B_ End view of the stone, showing the sutures for the 3 carpels (_a_), and the 3 germ-pores; the embryo emerges from the lowest one when germination begins. _C_ Germinating; inside the stone is seen the hollow endosperm and the enlarging cotyledon.]