COOK—-THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 3038 
other plants, where special conditions enable the palms to persist. 
Some of the North American palms that require sunlight have taken 
refuge in deserts of Mexico, while others are confined to the fire-swept 
pine barrens of Florida. A third series, represented by Thrinax and 
allied genera, occupies the exposed precipices and crags of the dry 
limestone hills and keys of the West Indies. A fourth series is 
limited to swamps or river banks (Augustinea), and a fifth to high 
mountain summits (Acrista). With the exceptions of the under- 
growth palms and the slender rattans and similar climbing types, 
there are very few true forest species able to secure a footing or even 
to hold their own in undisturbed tropical tree growth. 
These limitations are shared by the coconut and all of its nearer 
relatives, which inhabit relatively open interior districts, rocky 
mountain slopes, and barren or exposed situations where vegetation 
of other types is comparatively sparse. Some of the species frequent 
river banks, but these are distant and rather degenerate cousins of 
the coconut. Few members of the family, if any, are natives of truly 
maritime districts. Very few palms, even of other families, are to be 
reckoned as definitely maritime plants, for while several frequent the 
seashore, such as the palmettos of Florida and the West Indies, they 
are also able to grow away from the sea. A species of Phoenix (pos- 
sibly P. reclinata), native in Liberia, is confined to the sea beach, 
occurring only in the outermost zone of shrubby vegetation stunted 
by the salt spray, but this apparent preference is likely to be due to 
the fact that the sea beach affords more of the necessary exposure 
to the sun than can be obtained in the adjacent forest. 
For the want of a more distinctive term, the larger palms are called 
“trees,” but they might be described more correctly as overgrown 
herbs. Their trunks are always constructed on the same general 
plan as the cornstalk or the sugar cane, consisting of a central mass of 
pith with a hard external shell, but without the true bark which 
enables the trunks of other trees to increase gradually in thickness 
after beginning their growth as slender shoots. The young coconut 
palm is under the necessity of producing many leaves at the surface 
of the ground before the trunk can attain its full diameter and begin 
its upward columnar growth. 
The two or three years that are lost before the upward growth of the 
trunk can begin are a very serious handicap in the race for existence 
among the luxuriant and tangled growth of shrubs, trees, and vines 
which promptly overrun any abandoned land in the humid Tropics. 
Exogenous plants begin the elongation of the stem immediately after 
germination, and usually produce much longer internodes in the shade 
than when exposed to the sunlight. Unless the human friends of the 
young coconut are at hand to keep down the other vegetation the 
period of infancy is not survived, 
