Coconuts and corn

[Steve Hinkson]

Yes john, you're right.  The corn you eat off the cob is also a seed that is
eaten unripe.  The sweetness is in the liquid endosperm, just as in a
coconut.  When corn's ripe, it's starchy.
Thought the starch was the corn's cotyledon, and the endosperm was enclosed.
Guess Bill Purves thinks that's the wrong anatomy of monocot seeds.  I still
want to know where the  cotyledon is in a Mono - cotyledonus plant.

John T. Barber wrote:

> I believe that corn goes through a similar (to coconuts) "milk stage" - an
> immature stage at which the unripe corn has a "squishy" kernel that
> subsequently hardens as the liquid endosperm solidifies.  Doesn't answer
> many of the questions that have been asked but at least corn is more
> familiar to most of us.  There are probably many plants whose seeds go
> through the same developmental sequence (but if so, I don't know what they
> are).
>
> John



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