A scrutiny of the major works on tropical fruit plants 
indicates that Solanum Topiro has been completely neg- 
lected and probably unknown as acultigen. It does not, 
for example, appear in Wilson Popenoe’s ‘‘Manual of 
tropical and subtropical fruits’* (1920), in F. C. Hoehne’s 
‘*Frutas indigenas’’ (1946) nor in Adolfo Ducke’s **Plan- 
tas da cultura precolombiana na Amazonia brasileira. . .” 
in Bol. Téen. Instit. Agron. Norte, no. 8 (1946). Fur- 
thermore, standard anthropological and botanical papers 
on Indian agriculture in the American tropies fail to 
mention it: Robert H. Lowie, *‘The tropical forests: 
an introduction” and Carl O. Sauer, ‘‘Cultivated plants 
of South and Central America” in Handbook of South 
American Indians [ed. J. H. Steward], Bur. Am. Ethnol. 
Bull. 143, 8 (1948) 2 and 6 (1950) 487, respectively. As 
Fennell (Fennell, Joseph L. ‘*Cocona—a desirable new 
fruit’’ in For. Agric. 12 (1948) 181) has written: ‘*To 
what extent, if any, the cocona [Solano Topiro] may 
have reached the gardens of the outside world is difficult 
to say. That it appears even now to be essentially un- 
known to horticulture leads me to believe, in light of its 
impressive appearance and apparent usefulness, that it 
may never have previously lett its secluded habitat as a 
recognized fruit of value.” 
So faras I have been able to ascertain, the first serious 
attention paid by botanists to Solano Topiro as a culti- 
gen dates from the middle of the 1940’s. During this 
period, seeds of the plant were collected **from the little- 
explored reaches of the upper Amazon”’ (presumably in 
Peru) and established in the Experiment Station at Tingo 
Mariain Peru. Eventually, it was introduced to the In- 
stituto Interamericano de Agricultura Tropical in Tur- 
rialba, Costa Rica (Fennell, loc. cit. ; Ochse, J. J.‘ Sola- 
num hyporhodium or cocona’” in Proc. Fla. State Hort. 
Soc. 66 (1958) 211) from which centre it began to attract 
horticultural attention. 
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