A NEW PALM FROM COCOS ISLAND COLLECTED ON 

 THE PRESIDENTIAL CRUISE OF 1938 



By O. F. COOK 



(With 26 Plates) 



Cocos is a small, mountainous, forest-covered island less than 4 

 miles across, lying in the Pacific Ocean about 250 miles southwest of 

 Panama, chiefly known as a resort of buccaneers and seekers of buried 

 treasure. The mountains rise to nearly 3,000 feet, with surfaces too 

 precipitous for cultivation or grazing, so that permanent settlements 

 have not been made, and the native vegetation has not been extermi- 

 nated. The new palm was collected by Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, of the 

 United States National Museum, during the 1938 cruise of President 

 Roosevelt on the U.S.S. Houston. It is a tall, handsome palm, of a 

 group that has received relatively little study. Though not related to 

 the coconut palm, it is remarkably similar in size and general appear- 

 ance, and apparently was responsible in part for the name of the 

 island. Certainly it was included with the coconut by Lionel Wafer 

 in the account of his visit to Cocos Island in 1685, in "A New Voyage 

 and Description of the Isthmus of America,'' published in 1699. 



A nearly complete series of specimens was obtained by Dr. Schmitt. 

 including flowers preserved in formalin, and photographs showing the 

 native conditions and habits of growth, with the result that detailed 

 comparisons with related palms from the mainland of Central and 

 South America are made possible in this paper. Entire inflorescences 

 and sections of the trunk were brought back, which make it possible 

 to determine and to present illustrations of several features usually 

 disregarded in descriptions, though of biologic and taxonomic interest. 

 Palms are poorly represented in collections, and many have been 

 described from fragmentary material, with only a few of the distinc- 

 tive characters represented. 



The study of palms has remained backward compared with other 

 branches of tropical botany, notwithstanding that popular interest in 

 palms is perhaps greater than in any other plants. No other order of 

 plant life contributes so much to the tropical landscape or finds so 

 many uses among the tropical peoples. The reason why collectors of 

 other plants usually neglect or avoid the palms is that specimens are 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 98, No. 7 



