ee Se ee 
xu, C,1 Beccari: Origin and Dispersal of Cocos Nucifera 29 
caffra Beccari,* in South Africa, must weaken the belief in a 
necessarily American origin of all the Cocoineae. 
Indeed, Jubaeopsis caffra turns out to have many more affi- 
‘nities with Cocos nucifera than has any other palm whatever 
among those hitherto referred by authors to the genus Cocos.° 
I have already shown elsewhere that Cocos nucifera is a mono- 
_typic palm, with but few affinities with the other palms included 
in the genus Cocos,’° whereas it has much in common with Juba- 
eopsis; namely, the general conformation of the fruit; the ample 
central cavity of the seed; and the male flowers with sepals 
entirely free and imbricated. This affinity to Jubaeopsis had 
led me to hazard a doubt as to whether Cocos nucifera may have 
originated, not in Polynesia or in some lands which have now 
disappeared from that part of the Pacific as I formerly sup- 
posed," but rather in the islands lying in the eastern Indian 
Ocean or in some other lands or islands, existing in former times 
between Africa and India.’** According to this hypothesis, 
Ceylon and the Keeling Islands must lie almost in the region 
where Cocos nucifera assumed its present specific characters. 
The species of Eugeissonia, belonging to a genus of palms pecu- 
liar to the Malay region, which until now have been referred to 
the Lepidocaryeae, I have shown to have more affinity with the 
Cocoineae than with the Lepidocaryeae.** In the face of these 
* Webbia 4: 169. 
° After further careful study, I think it better to regard as distinct genera 
the subgenera Arecastrum, Butia, and Glaziova, proposed by me in Mal- 
pighia 5 (1888) 343. (Le Palme incluse nel genere Cocos). The genus 
Arecastrum is composed only of C. Romanzoffiana Cham., with its numerous 
varieties or subspecies and of the hardly specifically distinct C. botryophora 
Mart. To the genus Butia belong C. capitata Mart., and its numerous forms 
known by the names of C. odorata Barb.-Rodr., C. pulposa Barb.-Rodr., 
C. lejospatha Barb.-Rodr., and several others cultivated in our gardens 
under the names of C. australis, C. campestris, etc. The following are 
species of Butia also: C. Yatay Mart., C. paraguaensis Barb.-Rodr. (prob- 
ably only a variety of C. Yatay), C. eriospatha Mart. ex Drude, and probably 
C. stolonifera Barb.-Rodr. Species of Glaziova are: C. Weddelliana Wendl., ° 
C. coronata Mart., C. comosa Mart., C. petraea Mart., C. campestris Mart., 
C. flecuosa Mart., and numerous other species described by Drude in the 
Flora Brasiliensis and by Barbosa-Rodriguez in his Sertum palmarum. On 
the whole the species of Glaziova amount to more than forty. Cocos schizo- 
phylla Mart. is Aricuriroba Capanemae Barb.-Rodr. (Aricuri schizophylla 
Bece.). 
* Ann. Bot. Gard. Buitenz. Suppl. 3 (1910) 795. 
* Op. cit. 802. 
® Webbia, 1. c. 
* Webbia 4: 190. 
