NO. 7 A NEW PALM FROM COCOS ISLAND COOK 3 



outcrops unfavorable for other vegetation sometimes give the palms 

 exclusive possession of the mountain summits, with the elevated 

 groves of palms standing out like islands in a sea of forest verdure. 



All the mountain palms and their forest relatives are of slender 

 habit, with smooth, clean trunks prolonged by a green column of 

 closely wrapped leaf-sheaths, as in the royal palms, but with the 

 foliage usually a lighter, fresher green, more regular and more open, 

 so that the general effect is exceedingly graceful. The name Oreo- 

 doxa, meaning "mountain-glory," was very appropriately given to one 

 of the high-altitude palms of Venezuela, discovered by Willdenow, 

 but misapplied by Martius to the royal palms of the West Indies, 

 which grow in the lowlands. 



The new genus from Cocos Island finds its affinities with the moun- 

 tain palms, though larger than other members of that series and 

 different in many features from the mountain palms of the West 

 Indies. The trunk is tall, rigid, and columnar, not attaining the thick- 

 ness usual in the royal palms, but the crown of foliage having an equal 

 spread and a form even more attractive. A trunk measured by 

 Dr. Schmitt was more than 66 feet long; the leaf -blades attain 13 feet 

 in length, and the segments or pinnae of the leaves are nearly 4 feet 

 long. The open appearance of the leaf-crown is determined by the 

 pinnae not being crowded together and set at different angles to the 

 midrib, as in the royal palms, but regularly spaced and positioned, 

 drooping and swaying in the graceful manner reckoned by many 

 writers as the special charm of the coconut palm, a deceptive similarity 

 that allowed the native Cocos Island palm to remain unrecognized, 

 although every visitor must have seen it. The nature of the resem- 

 blance may be appreciated by referring to small photographs taken 

 for Dr. Schmitt by Mr. Thompson and reproduced at the top of 

 plate 13. On the left is a group of coconut palms growing at Wafer 

 Bay, on the right a profile of one of the native palms, emerging above 

 the forest. 



COCOS ISLAND AS DESCRIBED BY LIONEL WAFER 



The remarkable similarity of the foliage makes it easy to under- 

 stand how the palms that Wafer and later visitors saw on the hills 

 of Cocos Island would be identified with the coconut palms that grew 

 along the shore, and how this error might complicate the history of 

 the coconut palm, as well as conceal the existence of a different native 

 type. Wafer's circumstantial account of wild coconut palms growing 

 freely on the forest-covered hills of an uninhabited island doubtless 

 has contributed greatly to the belief, still held by some, that the coco- 



