COOK—THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 323 
of the coconut, and some varieties of the peach also yield a consid- 
erable percentage of seedlings that retain the parental characters. 
The vast majority of varieties of cultivated trees have to be prop- 
agated from cuttings or grafts. The reason for this contrast be- 
tween trees and annual plants is doubtless to be found in the greater 
amount of time required for the selective breeding of trees. The 
existence of mutative varieties might be considered as an evidence 
that the culture of the coconut palm is older than that of the date 
palm. That date varieties are usually propagated from cuttings 
should not interfere with the development of mutative varieties, 
but the diwcious habit of the date may be a more serious obstacle. 
The evolutionary interest of the varieties of the coconut does not 
lie, therefore, in any difference of behavior from other plants of like 
history, but in their complete agreement, and in helping to show that 
even in plants so peculiar as the palms the same law of evolution holds, 
that narrow segregation, or inbreeding, is accompanied by mutative 
variations, often distinctly degenerate from the biological standpoint. 
The peach palm, the coconut, the oil palm,” and the date have series of 
similar variations, indicating that like evolutionary causes are active 
in the production of like effects, in spite of the fact that the 
palms themselves and the conditions under which they live are very 
different. 
Although the disparity in coconut varieties between the East 
Indies and tropical America is very great, it is a mistake to suppose 
that there are no distinct varieties in America. Velasco’s account of 
the four different kinds of coconuts in Colombia has already been 
quoted, and reference has been made to the small variety found on 
Cocos Island by Professor Pittier as distinct from the ordinary com- 
mercial variety grown on the adjacent shores of Costa Rica. Mr. 
O. W. Barrett, who formerly resided in Porto Rico, states that there 
are two distinct varieties on that island, one with yellowish leaves 
and fruits, the other with green. The milk of the latter is considered 
preferable while the yellow variety has the thicker ‘‘meat.” It is 
stated by planters and importers that the coconuts of the coast of 
Colombia, sometimes called San Blas coconuts, are considered dif- 
ferent from those grown in other places in the Caribbean region. 
The ready separation of the meat from the shell gives these nuts a 
special value for manufacturing purposes. 
A further example of what may be a distinctively American 
variety of the coconut was found in 1902 at Tapachula, a town in the 
@ Preuss, P., Ber. Deutsch. Pharm. Gesellsch., vol. 13, p. 109. 1903. Fendler, G., 
loc. cit., p. 119. The latter paper describes three varieties from the Togo colony, 
the first with the shell so thin that it can be broken with the teeth, the second with 
green instead of red fruits, the third with the leaf segments united and the leaf bases 
persistent. See also The varieties of the oil palm in West Africa, Kew Bulletin of 
Miscellaneous Information, 1909, p. 33. 
