That is the ovule.

In that lies the life, the 'forma formativa,' of the future tree.

How that life works, according to its kind, who can tell?
What it does, is this: it is locked up inside a hard woody shell, and outside that shell are several inches of tough tangled fibre.

How can it get out, as soft and seemingly helpless as a baby's finger?
All know that there are three eyes in the monkey's face, as the children call it, at the butt of the nut.

Two of these eyes are blind, and filled up with hard wood.