280 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
contrasted with their supposed absence on the Atlantic coasts and 
islands. De Candolle alludes to Oviedo only in the following passage: 
Oviedo, writing in 1526, in the first years of the conquest of Mexico, says that the 
cocoa-nut palm was abundant on the coast of the Pacific in the province of the Cacique 
Chiman, and he clearly describes the species. This does not prove the tree to be 
wild. In southern Asia, especially in the islands, the cocoa-nut is both wild and cul- 
tivated. The smaller the islands, and the lower and the more subject to the influence 
of the sea air, the more the cocoa-nut predominates and attracts the attention of 
travelers.@ 
Oviedo’s statement is not the only one that has to be explained if 
we are to deny the existence of the coconut palm in the West Indies 
when the Spaniards arrived. Columbus himself recorded the finding 
of coconuts on the north coast of Cuba, near Puerto Principe, only a 
little over a month after his first landing in the Bahamas. 
The Admiral got into the boat, and went to visit the islands he had not yet seen to 
the S. W. He saw many more very fertile and pleasant islands, with a great depth 
between them, Some of them had springs of fresh water, and he believed that the 
water of those streams came from some sources at the summits of the mountains. He 
went on, and found a beach bordering on very sweet water, which was very cold, 
There was a beautiful meadow, and many very tall palms. They found a large nut of 
the kind belonging to India, great rats, and enormous crabs. He saw many birds, and 
there was a strong smell of musk, which made him think it must be there. This day 
the two eldest of the six youths brought from the Rio de Mares, who were on board the 
caravel Nitta, made their escape.b 
The coconut was known to mediwval Europe only as Nuz Indica, 
or Indian Nut, the name ‘“‘coconut,”’ though stated in dictionaries to 
be derived from Latin and Greek words meaning nut or seed, seems 
not to have been applied to the coconut till after the discovery of 
America. Other lexicographers have undertaken to derive coco 
from Spanish or Portuguese words meaning ape or ogre, an applica- 
tion which is explained by allusion to the three pits or eyes of the 
coconut which afford a grotesque suggestion of the face of a man or 
amonkey. It is quite possible, however, that the Spaniards adopted 
the word coco from the natives of the West Indies as they did many 
other names of agricultural plants, such as ‘mais’? (Indian corn), 
“aji’’ (capsicum), ‘achiote”’ (anatto), “platano”’ (banana), “mani” 
(peanut), etc. In the case of the banana it is evident that a native 
word, closely resembling platano led the early explorers to suppose 
that the banana was the actual platano or plane tree of which the 
Spaniards of that time knew only the name as it occurs in the Bible. 
The histories written by Oviedo and Acosta both contain chapters 
explaining that the plane tree of Scripture was not the same as the 
‘““platano” of the West Indies. 
4 De Candolle, A., Origin of Cultivated Plants, ed. 2,p.431. (1886.) 
6 Journal of the first voyage of Columbus, trans. by C. R. Markham, p. 80. (Hakluyt 
Society, 1893.) 
