COOK—-THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA, 277 
While most of Peter Martyr’s allusions to dates give no details that 
afford a botanical identification of the palm, it must be remembered 
that there is no other palm in the West Indian region that is more 
similar to the date or any other that has economic importance 
enough to bring it to the attention of men like Martyr and his English 
translator, Eden, and lead them to reckon it among the economic 
products of the New World. Eden seems to have been more keenly 
interested in such matters than Martyr and occasionally adds infor- 
mation from other sources to his translation of Martyr, as in the fol- 
lowing instance: 
. . . In these Tlandes they founde no trees knowen ynto them, but pyne app[l]e 
trees, and date trees: And those of maruelous heyght and exceding harde, by reason 
of the greate moystnesse and fatnesse of the grounde, with continuall and temperate 
heate of the sonne, whiche endureth so all the hole yere.¢ 
There is no corresponding statement in the complete Latin text of 
Martyr’s ‘“‘Decades”’ published at Paris in 1587, under the title ‘‘De 
Orbe Novo.” The interest of the passage is not destroyed by the 
fact that it was an interpolation, for Eden was a contemporary of 
Martyr and published his translation of the first three of Martyr’s 
“Decades” before the complete edition was issued. That Eden 
understood Martyr’s passages about palms to refer to the coconut can 
hardly be doubted, and there is no reason to claim that he was mis- 
taken in such instances as the following: 
This fortresse, he cauled saynt Dominikes towre. Into this hauen, runneth a ryuer 
of holsome water, replenyshed with sundrye kyndes of good fysshes. They affyrme 
this ryuer to haue many benefytes of nature. For, where so euer it runneth all thynges 
are excedynge pleasaunte and fruitfull: hauynge on euery syde, groues of date trees, 
and dyuers other of the Ilande frutes so plentyfully, that as they sayled alonge by the 
shore, often tymes the branches therof laden with flowres and fruites, hunge soo ouer 
theyr heades, that they mighte plucke them with theyr handes.> 
The phrase ‘‘groves of date trees” is justified by Martyr’s Latin 
word palmeta, which also carries an implication that the groves were 
artificial, and not mere forests of wild palms. In another passage 
wild palms that grow ‘‘of themselves”? are mentioned in direct con- 
trast with those that bear ‘‘dates”’ larger than those of Europe, thus 
implying again that the latter were cultivated. 
. . . They haue also abundance of nuttes of pynetrees, and great plentie of date trees, 
whiche beare frutes bygger then the dates that are knowen to vs: but they are not apte 
to bee eaten for theyr to much sowernes. Wylde and baren date trees, growe of them 
selues in sundry places, the branches wherof they use for biesommes, and eate also 
the buddes of the same. ¢ 
The words nucibus pineis of the Latin original indicate that Martyr, 
as well as his translator, confused pines and pineapples. It does not 
@ Martire in Arber, op. cit., p. 67. b Martire in Arber, op. cit., p. 82. 
¢ Martire in Arber, op. cit., p. 181. 
