THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE 
COCOA PALM. 
INTRODUCTORY. 
Few groups of plants as widely distributed as the palms have their 
species, genera, and even families so strictly limited geographically. 
A large proportion of the genera are monotypic, and many of the 
species are confined to small islands or localized in equally cireum- 
scribed continental areas. Thus, not only are all the species and 
genera of American palms different from those of Asia, but several 
genera are peculiar to the intervening islands of the Pacific, though 
most of these are of Asiatic rather than of American affinities. To 
the above rule the generally credited Asiatic or Malayan origin of the 
cocoa palm has furnished the single exception, all of its relatives being 
American. © Curiosity regarding the nature of the evidence-by which 
such an anomaly of distribution could be established and explained has 
led, first, to a review of the data relating to the long known, though 
frequently forgotten, fact that the cocoanut was in America before the 
discovery of this continent by Europeans; and, second, to a belief 
that the supposed proof of thé extra-American origin of the cocoanut 
is not only inadequate, but that the theory of such an origin is incom- 
patible with numerous collateral facts. 
In attempting to present an alternative view a remarkable amount 
of traditional error and confusion has been encountered; indeed, a 
thorough examination and elucidation of the misconceptions which 
have grown up about this question would require far more time and 
space than the discussion of gratuitous errors can ever deserve. And 
yet many of the points involved are of interest and importance outside 
the immediate problem, in that they relate to facts and inferences 
bearing upon all similar discussions, in which systematic biology and 
ecology are combined with anthropology, philology, history, and tra- 
dition, Finally, an immediate justification of a somewhat detailed dis- 
cussion of the origin of the cocoa palm is to be found in the fact that 
it furnishes a not unfair example of the treatment which similar 
questions have received at the hands of De Candolle and others whose 
opinions are commonly cited with confidence by both botanists and 
