They are rudiments--hints-- that the nut ought to have, perhaps had uncounted ages since, not one ovule, but three, the type-number in palms.

One ovule alone is left; and that is opposite the one eye which is less blind than the rest; the eye which a schoolboy feels for with his knife, when he wants to get out the milk.
As the nut lies upon the sand, in shade, and rain, and heat, that baby's finger begins boring its way, with unerring aim, out of the weakest eye.

Soft itself, yet with immense wedging power, from the gradual accretion of tiny cells, it pierces the wood, and then rends right and left the tough fibrous coat.

Just so may be seen--I have seen--a large flagstone lifted in a night by a crop of tiny soft toadstools which have suddenly blossomed up beneath it.

The baby's finger protrudes at last, and curves upward toward the light, to commence the campaign of life: but it has meanwhile established, like a good strategist, a safe base of operations in its rear, from which it intends to draw supplies.