432 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



The cocoa-nut 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 Martins believes 

 it to have been transported by currents from the islands 

 situated to the west of Central America, into those of the 

 Asiatic Archipelago. I formerly inclined to the same 

 hypothesis/ since admitted without question by Grise- 

 bach ; ^ but the botanists of the seventeenth century often 

 regarded the species as Asiatic, and Seemann,^ 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.* Drude/ who has studied the Palmacese, 

 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 Elseis, and even here he suspects a 

 transport of the E. guineensis from America into Africa, 

 which is not at all probable. (See above, p. 429.) The 

 force of this argument is somewhat diminished by the 

 circumstance 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 winds of the Pacific, to the south and yet 

 more to the north of the equator, drive floating bodies 

 from America to Asia, a direction contrary to that of the 

 general currents.^ It is known, moreover, from the un- 



^ A. de Candolle, GSogr. Bot. Raisonnee, p. 976. 



^ Grisebach, Vegetation der Erde, pp. 11, 323. 



^ Seemann, Flora Vitiensis, p. 275. 



* The cocoa-mat called Maldive belongs to the genus Lodoicea. 

 Coco mamillaris, Blanco, of the Philippines is a variety of the culti- 

 vated Cocos nucifera. 



^ Drude, in Bot. Zeitung, 1876, p. 801 ; and Flora Brasiliensis, fasc. 85, 

 p. 405. 



^ Stieler, Hand Atlas, edit. 1867, map 3. 



