272 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
for the characters that have been looked upon as special adaptations 
for maritime dissemination. 
The huge seed with its immense store of food materials and its 
thick fibrous husk make it possible for the coconut to propagate itself 
in the relatively dry interior localities where it appears to have orig- 
inated. The inability of the palm to withstand shade explains why 
it has been unable to establish itself as a wild plant on any tropical 
seacoast. The application of these facts to cultural problems shows 
that the possibilities of an extratropical extension of the coconut 
palm are not to be realized on seacoasts, but in interior desert regions 
where larger amounts of heat and sunlight are to be obtained. 
Though the biological evidence of the American origin of the coco- 
nut palm appears complete and adequate, recent years have brought 
to light several additional facts which may be of use to those whose 
training and habits of thought lead them to attach great weight. to 
the historical arguments of De Candolle and other writers who 
believed in the Old World origin of this palm and its dissemination 
by the sea. The reader is impressed by De Candolle’s references to 
many old and rare books, and will naturally remain loth to believe 
that so eminent an authority could have come to an erroneous con- 
clusion, unless all the foundations of his opinions are carefully 
reexamined. 
It is important to trace and clear away any mistakes or false 
deductions which obscure the early history of cultivated plants. Mis- 
conceptions regarding the origin and dissemination of any important 
economic species tend to distort human history as well as to mislead 
botanical and agricultural investigation. It is only when we view 
the past with the right perspective that we gain correct ideas of the 
factors which control our present interests and our future progress. 
Civilization itself is based on cultivated plants, and history may be 
written with as much propriety from the agricultural standpoint as 
from the military, political, or commercial. 
Many of the plants valued by primitive man have found no place 
in our civilization, but have gone more or less completely out of use, 
either because other species of better quality or more abundant yield 
have taken their places, or because their uses have been outgrown. 
The coconut does not belong among the plants of waning importance. 
Its cultivation is being extended in many parts of the Tropics, and 
Its products are rapidly gaining places in the domestic economy of 
the most civilized nations of Europe and America. The probability 
is great that the coconut palm will be recognized eventually as a food 
plant of the first rank, not merely by the natives of the Malayan and 
Polynesian islands, but by the whole civilized world. 
Coconuts are an important product in Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the 
Philippines. A coconut industry has been established in southern 
