34 <1. The Philippine Journal of Science 1917 
DISSEMINATION OF THE COCONUT BY MARITIME AGENCY 
Cook writes (I, p. 276) that the ocean currents are an effective 
agency for the dissemination of the coconut and that “the theory 
of the transfer of fruits by ocean currents has received much 
attention and far greater credence than the facts seem to war- 
rant.” “The poetic theory of the cocoanut palm dropping its 
fruit into the sea to float away to barren islands and prepare 
them for human habitation” is called a “time-honored fancy.” 
(I, p. 276.) And again he says (II, p. 297): “A palm that is 
unable to maintain itself on the land has nothing to gain by 
having its nuts drifted about by the sea.” It seems to me, how- 
ever, that the restocking with plants of the islands in the Sunda 
Strait after the explosion in 1883 contradicts all these assertions, 
for both in Krakatau and in the small islands in its immediate 
vicinity that catastrophe involved the complete destruction of 
all organic life. This notwithstanding, Ernst “ informs us that 
at the time of his visit to those islands, only a few years after 
the cataclysm, “the large number of coconut palms” was “an 
especially remarkable feature.” In the earliest visits to the 
devastated islands, Doctor Treub and Professor Penzig not only 
picked up coconuts which had been thrown up on the beaches 
by the waves, but also, very soon encountered coconut palms 
pushing their young green fronds through the soil; and in Plate 
IV, fig. 7, of Ernst’s book a young coconut palm at the upper 
edge of the tide level (southeast coast of Krakatau) can be seen; 
in Plate VIII, fig. 11, an entire group of coconut palms is seen 
“towering above the other trees;’ and of this group our author 
writes: 
“To our great delight we found the coconut palms laden with fruit. 
The large number of ripe nuts on the ground, several of which had ger- 
minated and produced plants reaching one meter in height, showed that, 
they must have attained the fruiting stage some years ago: a renewal 
of the forest is thus amply provided for. We were all refreshed by a quan- 
tity of unripe fruits which one of our Javanese companions brought down 
from the crowns of the palm trees.” The same author on disembarking 
at Zwarte Hoek, likewise in Krakatau, writes: “Young coconut palms 
occur here and there with seedlings of Barringtonia speciosa, etc.;” and 
on page 68: “Groups of strand-plants have penetrated inland for a distance 
of 300-500 m.” and among these are coconut palms. He adds that young 
coconut palms and Pandanus clumps are so near the edge of the sea that 
their stems are washed by the waves at high tide. 
Another observation by Cook seems to me unsustainable; 
namely, that (I, p. 276) “the cocoanut palm seldom grows upon 
* Ernst, A., The New Flora of the Volcanic Island of Krakatau, 58. 
spied esis 2s 
fetes 
