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260 ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE COCOA PALM. 
- Doubtless as a result of his studies in plant geography, Grisebach 
entertained a belief in the American origin of the cocoanut and placed 
its original habitat on the western coast of Panama.' 
The reasons for this opinion seem never to have been explained; but 
the indications are that Grisebach accepted De Candolle’s suggestion 
that the cocoa palm did not not occur normally on the American main- 
land, but at the same time appreciated the logical necessity of asso- 
clating the species as closely as possible with the American palm flora. 
In any event, the Panama theory, while sometimes quoted out:of 
deference to Grisebach’s botanical reputation, has received no general 
attention or acceptance, and the belief in an Asiatic origin, with a 
possible maritime or accidental introduction to the islands of the Bay 
of Panama, is still generally held. 
To De Candolle and other writers Seeman’s objection to an Ameri- 
‘an nativity has seemed adequate and incontrovertible, namely, the 
relatively small importance of the cocoa palm in America compared 
with its great and highly diversified utility on the shores and islands 
of tropical Asia. But, as suggested elsewhere, the abundance of other 
useful plants in America gave little incentive to specialization of the 
cocoanut, while the poverty of the indigenous floras of the Pacific 
islands focused human attention on the few species obtainable and led 
to the discovery of a great variety of secondary uses. Thus the Poly- 
nesiins, for want of more suitable materials, make fish nets from the 
fibers of the yam bean (Pachyrhizus), one of the most primitive of 
tropical culture plants and probably of American origin, though the 
fiber is not known to be used either in America or in Asia, whither 
the plant was carried in prehistoric times. 
But use is, after all, primarily a function of human skill and indus- 
try and may be no index of nativity. Nearly all the plants cultivated 
in the United States are of exotic origin, and a large proportion of the 
more important species came from the Old World. Moreover, if we 
think of the cocoa palm as having passed gradually across the Pacific, 
it is easy to understand that in addition to the uses discovered by the 
Polynesians there would be transferred to it when. it approached the 
shores of Asia a large variety of requirements which had been met 
previously by some of the numerous economic palms native in the 
Malay region, Thus toddy or palm wine has been drawn since time 
immemorial from a considerable number of Asiatic and Malayan spe- 
cies by methods which it was not difficult to adapt to the cocoanut. 
This and many other human arts and adaptations which have been 
interpreted as indications of the yery great antiquity of the species in 
Asia may possibly have been developed in connection with indigenous 
species and have been ready and waiting, as it were, for the arrival of 
the cocoanut. 
‘Flora of the British West Indies, p. 522 (1864). 
