Seeds Survive Long Sea Voyages

coconuts hang from a coconut palm tree with sunshine showing through the palm leaves

Biological Strategy

Coconut

AskNature Team

Image: Pexels / Pixabay / Public Domain - No restrictions

Protect From Excess Liquids

While water is essential to life, too much water or other liquids can overwhelm living systems. Excess liquids can, for example, decrease a living system’s access to oxygen, promote excessive bacterial or fungal growth, or strip away soil and nutrients. To prevent the accumulation of excess liquids, living systems must control the movement of liquids across their boundaries or surfaces. They do so using waterproofing materials or structures, slowing flow, and/or facilitating flow to move the liquid away. Plant leaves, for example, commonly have waxy surfaces comprised of water-repelling chemicals to keep water from engorging the leaves or facilitating bacterial and fungal growth.

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Manage Mechanical Wear

A living system is subject to mechanical wear when two parts rub against each other or when the living system comes in contact with abrasive components in its environment, such as sand or coral. Some abrasive components are a constant force, such as finger joints moving, while others occur infrequently, such as a sand storm moving across a desert. Living systems protect from mechanical wear using strategies appropriate to the level and frequency of the source, such as having abrasion-resistant surfaces, replaceable parts, or lubricants. For example, human joints like shoulders and knees move against each other all day, every day. To protect from mechanical wear, a lubricant reduces friction between the cartilage and the joint.

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Disperse Seeds

Plants disperse their seeds using a variety of mechanisms, including wind, rain, and attachment to animals. Seed dispersal can be important if plants growing too close together will compete for resources, such as nutrients and sunlight. Since plants are literally rooted in place, seed dispersal is also an important mechanism for expanding their range or reaching new environments.

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Flowering Plants

Clade Angiosperms (“receptacle seed”): Dandelions, oaks, grasses, cacti, apples

With 416 families containing some 300,000 known species, angiosperms are the most diverse group of plants, and they can be found around the globe in a wide variety of habitats. They are characterized by seeds that grow enclosed in ovaries, which are enclosed in flowers. The floral organs then develop into fruits of myriad kinds and dimensions, from simple seed casings on maples to elaborate fleshy growths like papayas. The oldest flower known from fossils, Montsechia vidalii, appeared during the Jurassic Period 130 million years ago. They are the primary food source for herbivorous animals, which in turn makes them the indirect food source for carnivores as well.

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The seeds of coconut palms survive long sea voyages because they are enclosed in nutrient-rich, water-filled protective shells.

botanical illustration of a coconut palm tree and its fruit

Image: Franz Eugen Köhler / Wikipedia / Public Domain - No restrictions

Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera) and fruit.

“Some trees send their seeds, not by air, but by sea. The most famous of all is the coconut palm. It dispatches its seed inside a hard shell that contains everything needed for a long voyage. Inside there is a supply of rich food, the so-called meat, and a half-a-pint or so of water. On the outside, it is fitted with a fibre float that keeps it on the surface of the water. This survival package serves it so well that coconut palms have colonised beaches throughout the tropics.” (Attenborough 1995:21)