Botany. — "0)i the luitnre and origin of the cocos-pearl" . By 

 Dr. F. W. T. HuNGEK. (Communicated by Piof. G. van 

 Itehson Jh.). 



(Communicated at the meeting of March 24, 1923j. 



In llie endosperm cavity of the seed ofCocos nuciferaa 

 local calcareous formation is sometimes found to occur, to which 

 the name of "cocos-pearl" has lieen given, and which must be 

 looked upon as a highly lemarkable and very rare phenomenon '). 

 Such a cocoa-pearl has usually the form of a pear, or egg, some- 

 times it is almost spherical and has a smooth surface, as a rule of 

 a milky-while colour. Its chemical composition corresponds somewhat 

 to that of the oyster-pearl, from which it differs, however, in appear- 

 ance by the lack of the pearly sheen. 



RuMPHius was the tirst to describe this calcareous formation as 

 "calappites" '), and for more than a century after him nothing was 

 heard of this phenomenon, till at the Meeting of the Boston Society 

 of Natural History on the 1^^' . of February 1860 "), Mr. Fhed. T. Bush 

 presented a specimen of this cocos-pearl for chemical and micro- 

 sco[)ical examination. The lesearch was entrusted to Dr. Bacon, who 

 submitted his report on the subject at the Meeting of the same 

 Society on 16"'. May I860*). 



In 1866 Dr. Riedei,, Ex-Resident of Menado, reported having found ~ 

 a pearl in a cocoanut he opened'). This was the first report by an 

 eye-witness who had actually seen this phenomenon, apart from the 

 many stories told by natives about it. 



Contrary to the statement of Bush to the effect that cocos-pearls 

 "are said to be found free within the cavity of the cocoa-nut", 

 Skeat ') reported in 1900 that they are "usually, if not always, 

 found in the open eye or orifice at the base of the cocoa-nut". 



1) V. W. T. Hunger, Oocos nucifera, 2nd Ed. pp. 243—250, PI. LXVII (1920). 

 ') E. RuMPHius, Herbarium Amboinense, Vol. I, pp. 21—23 (1741). 

 Idem, D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer, pp. 291- 292 (1741). 



') Proceedings of the Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist., Vol. VII, pp. 229 (1861). 

 *) Idem, Vol. VII, pp. 290-293 (1861). 

 s) Nature, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 167 (1887). 



•) W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, being an introduction to the folk-lore and 

 popular religion on the Malay Peninsula, pp. 196 (1900). 



