Bless you, Georgia O'Keefe

April 8, 2007 9:35 AM

When you consume coconut meat, coconut milk or popcorn you are eating endosperm. The dark, unsettling world of plant sexuality.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (35 comments total)

So I guess eating a fruitcake make somebody giggle uncontrollably like a fruitfucker.
posted by elpapacito at 9:49 AM on April 8, 2007

I want endosperm to have its own link please.
posted by tellurian at 9:49 AM on April 8, 2007

No problem: endosperm
posted by hal9k at 10:04 AM on April 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

I smear it all over my face. I'm an endosperm-loving coconut slut.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:05 AM on April 8, 2007 [3 favorites]

If people had any family values, they'd stick to Bisphenol A and leave these perversions alone!
posted by VulcanMike at 10:07 AM on April 8, 2007

I love the first link. Sent it to my coo-coo biologist friend.
posted by serazin at 10:08 AM on April 8, 2007

Ever eaten a bowl of cereal, pervert?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:09 AM on April 8, 2007

When you eat cornflakes, keep in mind that a sperm from the male tassel must fall on a strand of female silk and travel into the cob to fertilize and form a single kernel.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:13 AM on April 8, 2007

Embrace the sperm.
posted by Dizzy at 10:39 AM on April 8, 2007

See, that's what I keep telling people, Dizzy.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:57 AM on April 8, 2007

Bust a nut, yo.
posted by jonmc at 11:00 AM on April 8, 2007

Oh wow. the things one learns here. :)

Easter endosperm.

Talk about corn smut.

Well the delectable, translucent white, slippery endosperm of the coconut, especially in its young stage, tender coconut, really does taste, look and feel naughtily yummy.
posted by nickyskye at 11:04 AM on April 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

Mmmm....tender coconut.
posted by meh at 11:16 AM on April 8, 2007

Every endosperm is sacred
posted by buriednexttoyou at 11:21 AM on April 8, 2007

ps, While looking up coconut info in Google images, up came this gizmo from Japan, which has the world coconut as part of the operating features, for reasons I don't understand. Just thought I'd put it here in this thread for your enjoyment.
posted by nickyskye at 11:30 AM on April 8, 2007

yeah... just think of what you are doing when you stick your nose in a flower to take a whiff... For that matter giving your sweetie a bunch of roses for them to smell on a daily basis has strange, disturbing connotations.
posted by edgeways at 11:34 AM on April 8, 2007

posted "When you consume coconut meat, coconut milk or popcorn you are eating endosperm."

Note that this was NOT case until Massachusetts destroyed marriage by lettng homos have it.

Prior to Boston becoming Sodom, popcorn consisted of the crystallized giggles of cherubim, and coconut milk the distillate of Jesus's tears.
posted by orthogonality at 11:47 AM on April 8, 2007 [2 favorites]

*word coconut, not world. So many typos lately! So I really shouldn't be the one to point this out but it's O'Keeffe with 2 effs, not O'Keefe.
posted by nickyskye at 11:56 AM on April 8, 2007

I smear it all over my face. I'm an endosperm-loving coconut slut.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:05 AM on April 8 [+] [!]

Bukkaconut?
posted by YoBananaBoy at 12:00 PM on April 8, 2007

Weak. We used to think the whale's head was full of sperm. Now that's rockin' it.

(My brain is, occasionally, full of sperm. But only figuratively.)
posted by Firas at 12:03 PM on April 8, 2007

Mmm. Orville Redenbukakke.
posted by isopraxis at 12:12 PM on April 8, 2007 [2 favorites]

and?
posted by zouhair at 12:15 PM on April 8, 2007

Erm, it isn't that dark and unsettling. Our entire world is full of germ cells just floating around, decillions of 'em, just waiting to settle on something and fertilize it. Such is life amidst the riotous, raucous diversity of other life.

Also, for the record, endosperm isn't what it sounds like. It's actually triploid tissue (wherein each cell has three copies of each chromosome) that provides nutrition for the developing embryo.

The genetics of plants are fascinating, as an aside -- astonishing chromosomal, cellular, and lifecycle wierdness that nonetheless leads to perfectly healthy, fertile individuals. Polyploidy, is a good, intelligible example of this -- most of the cereal grains you eat have at least four copies each chromosome per cell, while some fruits and grains that have been heavily "engineered" by thousands of generations of artificial selection for desirable crop production qualities (e.g. strawberries, sugar cane) have six or eight copies per cell.
posted by killdevil at 12:29 PM on April 8, 2007

*Spews third piña colada all over keyboard*
posted by hal9k at 1:02 PM on April 8, 2007

Just so you guys know, it's best not to refer to the flowers you're giving to a girl as "severed plant vaginas."
posted by Citizen Premier at 3:21 PM on April 8, 2007

Sitting on moss makes me feel like a japanese schoolgirl.
posted by thirteenkiller at 3:59 PM on April 8, 2007

Yeah.. that's it.. eat it all.
posted by plant at 5:22 PM on April 8, 2007

There's still some on your chin.
posted by plant at 5:23 PM on April 8, 2007

This is why I've long referred to hay fever season as plant bukakke...
posted by Smilla's Sense of Snark at 6:24 PM on April 8, 2007

And those pine trees? Gymnosperms! Yes, gymno-, which means NAKED.
posted by hattifattener at 12:36 AM on April 9, 2007

(And, er, I have on occasion given my sweetie some flowers, describing them as "a collection of severed reproductive organs". She liked 'em anyway.)
posted by hattifattener at 12:39 AM on April 9, 2007

The meaty mass of an oyster is entirely composed of gonads.
posted by puddsharp at 8:14 AM on April 9, 2007

Mmmmmmmmm...gonads! Go! Nads! Go! Nads!
posted by spicynuts at 9:05 AM on April 9, 2007

"Dark, unsettling"? Well! The only fun part of (most) plant sex to watch is the flowers ... never unsettling!

Popcorn? mmmmm, no problem with endosperm. Anyway, the audacious polymorphicity of it all makes me ... green.
posted by Twang at 11:44 AM on April 9, 2007

Zomg! I'll have to quit my cereal, corn, papayas, and dried sunflower seeds! And those young bamboo shoots in cans - you're telling me I've been eating babies?
posted by Xere at 11:07 PM on April 9, 2007