Coconut & Pineapple Trees

[Starman 2112]

If apple trees grow from the pips inside their fruit likewise Oak trees growing from acorns.

Do Coconut and Pineapple trees grow from their fruit. If so how does a coconut tree grow, there aren't any pips inside the hard husk?

[aka estie]

The coconut that you see in stores in actually a seed. The fruit part is removed before it it is shipped to the stores. The white fleshy stuff that you eat is the endosperm, which is the nutrition for the embryo.

[Clanad]

A follow on to the Estie's post is that pineapples are propagated asexually. In Hawaii, crowns, that is the, spiky leaved top of the plant is twisted off of pineapples that are being prepared for canning and after being treated for fungus, are grown in fields under black mulching fabric. One can attempt this at home if you have a full pineapple. Twist out the top from it's plant, allow to dry and then plant in a large enough container to hold at least two gallons of soil. It's a thankless job, since it takes almost a year to grow one and often, new growth from the transplant isn't seen for perhaps 3 months... fun for the kids though...

[Thunderbird+]

The double giant coconut or coco de mer is in fact the wolds largest seed, it has a bouyant husk that floats off on the ocean and gets washed up on distant islands and if the conditions are right they may germinate.