Let me explain it, even at the risk of prolixity.

The coat of white pith outside, with its green skin, will gradually develop and harden into that brown fibre of which matting is made.

The clear water inside will gradually harden into that sweetmeat which little boys eat off stalls and barrows in the street; the first delicate deposit of which is the cream in the green nut.

This is albumen, intended to nourish the young palm till it has grown leaves enough to feed on the air, and roots enough to feed on the soil; and the birth of that young palm is in itself a mystery and a miracle, well worth considering.

Much has been written on it, of which I, unfortunately, have read very little; but I can at least tell what I have seen with my own eyes.
If you search among the cream-layer at the larger end of the nut, you will find, gradually separating itself from the mass, a little white lump, like the stalk of a very young mushroom.