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286 ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE COCOA PALM. 
palms (Guilielmia‘) of which the outer layer or husk is fleshy and edi- 
ble, not the kernel as in the cocoanut. Cieza de Leon also described 
numerous small lakes, springs, and pools of salt water in the Caue: 
Valley between Antioquia and Popayan, but especially at Cartago. 
But the final testimony to the existence of the cocoanut palin in the 
interior regions of Colombia is that of Humboldt, who in giving an 
account of the finding of healthy and vigorous trees at Concepcion del 
Pao, Venezuela, a station about midway on his journey between Bar- 
eclona and Angostura, declares that he and Bonpland also saw ** tine 
cocoa palms” repeatedly during their travels in the upper part of the 
alley of the Magdalena River of Colombia, 100 leagues from the 
coast.! 
As already stated, the derivation of the varieties of the cocoanut by 
human selection has taken place in the Malay region, and not. in 
America. It is, however, known that the cocoanuts shipped from the 
Colombian port of Cartagena are far superior to others produced in 
America, and apparently they also exceed those of the East Indies in 
thickness and quality of flesh, so that they are greatly preferred for 
confectionery purposes. This fact may have both theoretical and 
practical importance, since it suggests the possibilicy that, in spite of 
universal opinion, the cocoanut may be not only an inland species, but 
that it may actually have suffered deterioration through long cultiva- 
tion in an unfavorable habitat.2. The thicker meat of the Colombian 
nuts is a suggestion in the direction of haying the kernel fill the shell, 
the normal condition in all related palms. In fact, it is very difficult 
to understand why the cocoanut should have carried the development 
of the shell so far beyond the needs of the kernel. If the wild ances- 
tral type of the cocoanut still exists in the mountains of Colombia we 
may tind that its flesh, if not solid, is at least thicker and more highly 
flavored than that of any coast-grown nuts, and that the seed for new 
plantations should be obtained from the wild, instead of from the too- 
long domesticated stock. 
"Humboldt and Bonpland’s Reise, vol. 3, p. 212 (Wien, 1830). Seeman’s version of 
the same note (Popular History of the Palms, London, p. 155, 1856) differs substan- 
tially in omitting the statements regarding the healthy condition of the palms in 
these interior localities. 
* Though romance and poetry have always linked together reef and palm, yet truth 
to tell, the cocoanut does not attain its greatest luxuriance upon the low reef islands. 
To an eye, not to mention an appetite, accustomed to the cocoanuts of New Guinea. 
the fruit of Funafuti seems to be dwarfed and stunted, and the palm trunks to be 
small and slender. A hundred nuts on a stem is a maximum yield for Funatuti, but 
double that amount is obtained elsewhere. ‘As big as a Rotumah nut,” is a phrase 
often heard upon Funafuti, the richer soil of that high island producing larger nuts 
than the atolls; the shells of very large nuts being valued for flasks and toddy 
vessels. —C. Hedley, Australian Museum, Sydney, Memoir III, pt. 1, p. 23 (1896). 
