still inside the fruit. This seed is brown before germination and has a seed coat that is 0.2 mm thick. Once germinated, the seeds develop a seed leaf that is hooked in shape. The fruit containing the germinated seed splits easily with slight disturbance. Once the fruit splits open, either by rot or collision, the seed will sink to the bottom and travel along the river floor until it catches upon a projection. The seedling will then begin to develop and take root. The seedlings will typically develop three to four leaves that increase in size as growth continues. The seedlings and the juvenile plants develop entirely underwater, their fronds remaining flaccid and flowing with the current so as to not uproot in the river current. The young palms will emerge from the water and their fronds become rigid as the trunk develops. Morphology Mature R. musicalis ranges from 2.5 to 8 meters tall. The bottle-shaped trunk tapers down, with the broadest diameter of about 0.5 meters occurring at water level. The wood is soft and cream colored. R. musicalis is the only species in the genus Ravenea that lacks a layer of dense, hard, vertical black fibers lining the outer part of the stem, thought to benefit the structural strength of the tree. Fourteen to 16 pinnate ('feather-leaved') fronds emerge from the crown of the tree. They have been reported to reach up to 1.8 meters in length and have between 59 and 63 stiff leaflets, though the variation within the species can be considerable. The leaves have a tubular sheath at the base that is orange on the underside with thin, grey, tomentum. On the top, the sheath is proximally orange near the rachis of the frond, and distally green. The leaves are abaxially keeled with a glossy texture, and leaflets always occur within a single plane on either side of the rachis. Inflorescences in the genus Ravenea are always interfoliar. R. musicalis is one of seven species in the genus observed to have apparent multiple staminate inflorescences, though, like the rest of its genus, it has solitary pistillate inflorescences. Whether or not any plants in the genus Ravenea, including R. musicalis have true multiple inflorescence or false multiple inflorescence (a condensed branch system within a single prophyll) is debated. Staminate inflorescences occur in multiples of 5 and branch to 1 order. Pistillate inflorescences are solitary and branch