xu, c,1 Bececari: Origin and Dispersal of Cocos Nucifera 35 
the immediate strand overhanging the water, or even in reach of 
ordinary waves.” But everyone acquainted with the coasts of 
Asia and of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago and Poly- 
nesia knows the contrary to be the case. Cook himself (II, 
facing p. 299, Plate 54, fig. 1) gives an instructive illustration 
of “Coconut palms overhanging the surf at high tide, Puerto 
Barrios, Guatemala,” and another half-tone from a photograph 
(fig. 2) of “Coconut palms overhanging the sea, Livingston, Gua- 
temala.” Against these assertions of Cook’s one may oppose 
Ferguson’s words :** 
“The coconut tree flourishes better near the sea coast than in an inland 
situation. In such a vicinity it acquires more vigour, and produces with 
more fecundity; it never grows so luxuriant in the interior, where the 
air is not charged with saline particles, and salt water always seem to 
' nourish it more than fresh water. The sea may wash the bottom of 
coconut trees without injury to them.” And again, quoting Bertolacci, “It 
flourishes so very near the sea, that its roots are in many places washed 
by the waters without injury to the trees, until it is actually undermin 
As a result of my personal experience, also, all the arguments 
brought forward by Cook have not convinced me in the least 
that fruits of the coconut palm cannot be disseminated by the 
action of ocean currents, although he maintains (II, p. 324) that 
after his own observations no doubt can possibly remain that 
the contrary is the case. In fact he writes: 
“For nearly two centuries the coconut has been described in books of 
travel and natura) history, and even in formal scientific works, as an 
example of a plant widely distributed in nature through the agency of 
ocean currents.” The following are also his words (II, p. 300): “The 
possibility that a coconut might be stranded on a newly formed island and 
multiply in the unoccupied soil, according to the fable, may not be absolutely 
excluded, but we know that the monopoly would not be of long duration.” 
This, because the writer holds that young plants would be suffocated by 
“their forest-forming competitors.” 
I would observe, however, that these competitors on the sea 
shore would be only halophilous plants, which have never shown 
themselves to be incompatible with Cocos nucifera, especially 
on the sea beaches of coral islands, which are always in immediate 
contact with the sea. If on many continental and insular coasts 
of Asia the coconut palm is not met with, I would give among 
other reasons, which I shall state later, this one, that it is just 
because forest plants from the interior have found the means 
of forestalling or supplanting the strand plants which originate 
from drift seeds. 
* Ferguson, All About the Coconut Palm, 111. 
