HABITS OF PALMS. 283 
needed by the expanding leaves has been completely occupied by other 
trees and tangled vines the palm remains stunted and finally dies. 
This disability limits the palm in nature to more open situations, where 
unimpeded upward growth is possible through the absence of a dense 
covering of other vegetation. Sandy and rocky countries, exposed 
mountain tops and shores, the banks of rivers and smaller streams, are 
the favorite localities of palms. It is also of interest fo note that the 
cocoanut is seldom or never associated with wild native palms, even 
in the coast regions where it is most abundant. Moreover, contrary 
to the statements of some writers, it does not appear that the other 
species of Cocos and allied genera show any tendency to littoral habi- 
tats. The African oil palm seems more nearly to resemble the cocoa- 
nut in this respect; but it is distinctly more tolerant of forest conditions, 
and in West Africa thrives in inland situations where the cocoanut fails 
to make even a respectable beginning. And although seldom regularly 
planted, the distribution of the species is obviously due in large meas- 
ure to human agency. The seeds are scattered in large numbers in 
the open areas about native villages and farms. The young trees are 
spared by the natives when other vegetation is cleared away, both 
because of their utility and because they are difficult to cut, and they 
are able to resist fires which are fatal to most of the local plants. As 
a result oil palms are abundant in localities where the native popula- 
tions are sedentary and large enough to require frequent clearing of 
the land for agricultural purposes, but rare or entirely wanting where 
the natives move about or are so few as to permit the renewal of forest 
conditions between the periods of agricultural use of the land. But 
the oil palm, with its much smaller and less delicate seed, has almost 
infinitely greater possibilities of maintaining an independent existence 
than the cocoanut, which, with over three centuries of opportunity, 
is not showing any remarked tendency to make a spontaneous exten- 
sion of its range in West Africa. 
In fact, among ul its relatives the cocoa palm seems to be peculiarly 
ill adapted to maintain an existence at low elevations in the Tropies. 
Young trees have comparatively few leaves, and these are large and 
open and do not effectively shade and occupy the ground like the large 
and densely packed leaf crowns of Elaeis or Acrocomia. The latter 
palm is able to increase in the pasture lands of Porto Rico because of 
the protection afforded by its large needle-like spines, while the young 
p. 290, 1890-91) numerous widely distributed littoral species which had not yet 
become established on the island, although viable seeds were frequently cast up by 
the sea. The inference, accordingly, seems warranted that the vegetation of these 
islands is of relatively very recent origin, and that the cocoa palm was able to flourish 
because it arrived in advance of the species which otherwise might prevent its 
becoming established, 
3508—Vol. 7, No. 2—V01——3 
