94 



THF. TROPICAL AGSfCtfLTURfSf. 



[Jl7W£ i, i88$. 



mainland, and in the isle of Cocos, situated at throe 

 hundred miles from the continent in the Pacific. 

 At that time these islands were uninhabited. Later, 

 the coconut palm was found on the western coast 

 from Mexico to Peru, but usually authors do not 

 say that it was wild, excepting Seemanu, (r/) however, 

 who saw this palm both wild and cultivated on the 

 Isthmus of Panama. Accordiug to Hernandez, (A) in 

 the sixteenth century, the Mexicans called it cuyolli, 

 a word which does not seem to be native. 



Oviedo, (?) writing in 1526, in the first years of 

 the conquest of Mexico, says that the coconut palm 

 was abundant on the coast of the Pacific in the pro- 

 vince of the Cacique Chiman, and he clearly describes 

 the species. This does not prove the tree to be wild. 

 In southern Asia, especially in the islands, the coconut 

 is both wild and cultivated. The smaller the islands, 

 and the lower and the more subject to the influence 

 of the sea air, the more the coconut predominates 

 and attracts the attention of travellers. Some take 

 their name from the tree, among others two islands 

 close to the Andamans and one near Sumatra. 



The coconut occurring with every appearance of an 

 ancient wild condition at once in Asia and western 

 America, the question of origin is obscure. Excellent 

 authors have solved it differently. De Marlius believes 

 it to have been tiansported by currents' from the 

 islands situated to the west of Cental America, into 

 those of the Asiatic Archipelago. I formerly inclined 

 to the same hypothesis, (?) since admitted without 

 question by Grisebach ; (£•) but the botanists of the 

 seventeenth century often regarded the species as 

 Asiatic, and Seemanu, (() after a careful examination, 

 says he cannot come to a decision. I will give the 

 reasons for and against each hypothesis. 



In favour of an American origin, it may be said — 



1. The eleven other species of the genus Cocos 

 are American, and all those which de Martins knew 

 well are Brazilian, (m) Drude (»), who has studied the 

 Palmacens, has written a paper to show that each 

 genus of this family is proper to the ancient or to 

 the new world, excepting the genus Eire's, and even 

 here he inspects a transport of the E. guiheensis 

 from America into Africa, which is not at all pro- 

 bable. The force of this argument is somewhat dimin- 

 ished by the circumstauco that Cocos nucifera is a 

 tree which grows on the littoral and in damp places, 

 while the other species live under different conditions, 

 frequently far from the sea and from rivers. Maritime 

 plants, and those which grow in marshes or damp places, 

 have commonly a more vast habitation than others of 

 the same genus. 



2. The trade wiuds of the Pacific, to the south and 

 yet more to the north of the equator, drive n atiug 

 bodies from America to Asia, a direction contrary to 

 that of the general currents, (o) It is known, moreovtr, 

 from the unexpected arrival of bottles containing papers 

 on different coasts, that chance has much to do with 

 these transports. 



The arguments in favour of an Asiat'c, or conl i 

 to an American origin, are the following: — 



q Seemaiin, Bot. of Herald., p. 204. 



h Hernandez, Thesaurus Memo,, p. 71. He attributes 

 the same name, p. 75, to the coconut palm of the Philip- 

 pine Islands. 



i Oviedo, Ramusio's trans., iii. p. 53. 



/ A. de CandoUe, Giogr, Hut. Unison/ice, p. 970. 



/, Grisebach, Vegetation oZerErde, pp. 11, 328. 



I Seer. aim, Mora Vitiensis, p. 275. 



m The coconut called Maldive belongs to the genus 

 Lodoicea. Coco mamUlaris, Blanco, of the Philippines is 

 a variety of the cultivated Gocos mi ifei <. 



n Prude, in Bot. Zeitung, 1876, p. SOi and Flora 

 Brmiliensis, fasc. 85, p. 105, 



o Stieler, Hand Atlas, edit. 1807, map 3. 



1. A current between the third and fifth parallels, 

 north latitude, Hows from the islands of the Indian 

 Archipelago to Panama, (p) To the north and south 

 of thi3 are currents which take the opposite direction, 

 but they start from regions too cold for the coconut, 

 and do not touch Central America, where it is sup- 

 posed to have been long indigenous. 



2. The inhabitants of the islands of Asia were far 

 bolder navigators than the American Indians. It is 

 very possible that canoes from the Asiatic Islands, 

 containing a provision of coconuts, were thrown by 

 tempests or false manceuvres on to the islands or 

 the west coast of America. The converse is highly 

 improbable. 



3. The area for three centuries has been much 

 vaster in Asia than in America, and the difference 

 was yet more considerable before that epoch, for we 

 know that the coconut has not long existed in the east 

 of tropical America. 



4. The inhabilauts of the islands of Asia possess 

 an immense number of varieties of this tree, which 

 points to a very ancient cultivation. Blume, in his 

 Iiumphiu, enumerates eighteen varieties in Java and the 

 adjacent islands, and thirty-nine in the Philippines. 

 Nothing similar has been observed in America. 



5. The uses of the coconut are more varied and 

 more habitual iu Asia. The natives of America hardly 

 utilize it except for the contents of the nut, from 

 which they do not extract the oil. 



6. The common names, very numerous and original 

 in Asia, as we shall piajently see, are rare, and often 

 of European origin in America. 



7. It is not probable that the ancient Mexicans aud 

 inhabitants of Central America would have neglected 

 to spread the coconut in several directions, had it 

 existed among them from a very remote epoch. The 

 trilling breadth of the Isthmus of Panama would havo 

 facilitated the transport from one coast to the other, 

 and the species would soon have been established in 

 the West Indies, at Guiana, etc., as it has become 

 naturalized in Jamaica, Antigua, — (q) and elsewhere, 

 since the discovery of America. 



8. If the coconut in America dated from a geological 

 epoch more ancient tli'n the pleiocene or even eocene 

 deposits in Europe, it would probably have been found 

 on both coasts, and the islands to the east and west 

 equally. 



9. We eiunot find any aucient da'e of the ex- 

 istence of tbe coconut in America, but its presence 

 in Asia three or four thousand years ago is proved 

 by several Sanskrit names. Piddington in his iudex 

 only quotfs one, narvkela. It is the most certain, 

 since it recurs in modern Indian languages. Scholars 

 count ten of these, which, according to their meaning, 

 seem to apply to the species or its fruit, (r) Narikela has 

 passed witu modifications into Arabipaud Persian, (s) 

 It is even found at Otahi'i in the form art or 

 haari (I) together with a Malay name. 



10. The Malays have a name widely diffused iu the 

 archipelago — Ijftlapa, Ic'cpa, hlopo. At Sumatra and 

 Nicobar we find the name njior, nieor ; in the Philip- 

 pines, niog ; at Bali, niuh, njo : at Tahiti, mult : and 



■ in other islands, uu, nulju, ni , even at Madagascar, 

 iriM-nii. (li) The Chinese have ye, or ye tsu (the trie 



i is ye). With the principal Sanskrit name this consti- 

 tutes four different roots, which show an ancient 



i 



/, Stieler, ibid., map 0. 



,/ Grisebach, Nora of Brit. W.Indies, p. 552. 

 r Eugene Eournier has incicated to me, for iustuncc, 

 drdapala (with hard fruit), paldkecara (with hairy fruit), 

 jalaAajktt (water-holder), etc. 

 i s Blume, Rumphia, iii. p. 82, 



/ b'nrster, De Plantis Esculentis, p. 48; Nadcaud, IJnu.in. 

 des i 'U fi <''- l "iii, p. 41. 

 I u Blume, itbi supra, 



