288 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
Hatum chonta, that is, the largest of all palms. Its nut (coco) is commonly as large 
as the head of a man, covered with a tow which is the best kind for gun wads. The 
white marrow is very good, thick as a finger, and from it, by pressure, is extracted a 
very rich and sweet oil. The milky liquid is also sweet, refreshing, and good to 
drink, and from the nuts are made large vessels to hold liquors and for other purposes, 
Suni chonta is the palm with the long nut, slightly smaller than the preceding. It 
has the same properties and the tree is a little smaller. 
Vira chonta, the palm with buttery fruit. It is as high as the preceding, but much 
more slender and with narrow leaves. ‘The fruit is somewhat small@r, almost spherical, 
with little or no firm marrow, and the milk so thick that after a little beating it coagu- 
lates into a very rich butter for eating or lighting. It is peculiar to the River Cauca, 
on the confines of the province of Popayan, where the Spaniards first discovered it in 
1545, one of them, the historian Chieca de Leon, describing it. It is thus seen how 
lightly a thousand falsehoods are written by some, like Francisco Hernandez, native 
of Mexico, who in his Latin history asserts that cocos were brought by the Spaniards 
from the East Indies to the West. At their first entrance into South America they 
found very old palms full of fruit, which never occurs until after the age of 16-20 
years with these large kinds of cocos. 
Yurae chonta, the palm which yields the white coco, not only the marrow but all 
the shell being white, and this, being very thick, is made into cups for chocolate 
with embossed work. The meat is not very good and the tree rather small, * * * 
Almost all of these palms are from the province of Maynas, and some of them from 
Guayaquil and Popayan. 
Velasco does not give any definite citation of the books of Her- 
nandez, and may not have known them at first hand. In reality, 
Hernandez does not seem to have said that coconuts were brought 
from the East Indies. He states that coconuts were not found in 
New Spain (Mexico), but he reports at the same time that they were 
abundant in the West Indies as well as in the East, so that the idea 
of an introduction by the Spaniards is rather denied than affirmed. 
Velasco’s reference to the use of the small shells of the yurae chonta 
for embossed work may have interest in connection with the photo- 
graph of the carved shell of a small coconut shown in plate 53, figure 1, 
The specimen from which this photograph was taken was presented 
to the writer, some years ago by Gen. E. A. Lever, of New Orleans, 
having been found by him in a grave in the Chiriqui district of 
Panama in digging for the gold ornaments and pottery that are 
often found in the prehistoric graves of that region. 
ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE COCONUT IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 
While the early records appear sufficient to establish the existence 
of the palm in the New World at the time of the early discoveries, 
they certainly do not indicate that it was a food plant of primary 
importance in any part of tropical America, unless it were along the 
Pacific coast of Panama and Costa Rica. If the coconut had had 
any such prominence among the Caribs and Arawacks of the West 
Indies as among the Polynesians and Malays of the East it is incredible 
4 Velasco, J., Historia del Reino de Quito, vol. 1, pp. 52-54. (Quito, 1844.) 
