4? The Philippine Journal of Science 1917 
such high hereditary halophitism—which, therefore, not only 
tolerates, but actually prefers, a salt soil and, moreover bears 
fruit so constituted as to be, as Seeman writes,** “often tossed 
about the ocean for months without losing its germinating 
power from the effects of salt water”—can have been plasmed 
or brought into existence in a region remote from the sea. 
That Cocos nucifera is a true halophyte, that is to say, a plant 
capable of resisting the physiological action of mediums rich 
in chloride of sodium and in the other salts that are character- 
istic of sea water, the very presence of which is pernicious to 
most other types of vegetation, shows that it must have been 
placed in close contact with salt soils during the period of its 
evolution; considering, therefore, all the other circumstances 
that may have been required during and for the evolution and 
plasmation of the species Cocos nucifera, we are led to conclude 
that it must have originated on maritime shores. 
Few are the true halophytes, and for this reason the flora of 
maritime shores and of the coral islands is poor in species, but 
in compensation they are of extremely wide geographic dis- 
tribution. And this is because there are few plants having 
seeds tolerant of salt and at the same time provided with fruits 
capable of floating and of enduring a long immersion in salt © 
water and, hence, fitted for long voyages. The coconut palm is 
one of these few. It is true that this palm can grow and even 
prosper far from the sea and can exist at a certain elevation 
above it, but it is probable that in these localities it can always 
find the quantity of chloride of sodium it needs. But although 
it is true that the coconut palm is capable of adapting itself to 
non-saline soils, as other halophilous plants can do, it none the 
less remains true that if Cocos nucifera were not a plant of the 
sea shore, and therefore an indubitable hereditary halophyte, it 
would not be better suited by a soil rich in chloride of sodium 
than by a soil devoid of that salt. It was therefore on the 
shores of the sea and especially on those of the coral islands 
that Cocos nucifera must have found the conditions under which 
it assumed its present specific characters; because there it would 
have had little to fear from the competition of other large plants 
of the strand flora and because there, also, it had not to struggle 
against powerful foes. Therefore, it cannot be admitted that 
the coconut palm is “unable to maintain itself on the sea coasts,” 
and “the popular idea” that the “coconut palm is a plant specially 
adapted to tropical sea coasts” is, and remains, a true idea. 
* FI. Vit. 276. 
