Fruit 

 Production. 



cocos 



NUCIPERA THE COCOANUT PALM 



Cocoanut 



284-7 ; Cook, Orig. and Dist. Cocoa Palm (contrib. from Nat. Herb. U.S.A.), 

 1901, 257-93 ; Gamble, Man. Ind. Timbs., 1902, 739 ; Safford, Useful PL 

 of Guam (contrib. from U.S.A.), 1905, 233-43 ; Firminger, Man. Gard. 

 Ind. (ed. Cameron), 1904, 198-200 ; PALMEAE. The Cocoanut (Coconut) 

 Palm, Porcupine-wood, known in the chief Indian and Eastern vernaculars 

 as ndrel, ndriyal, ndrikel, ndrgil, maar, tenga, thenpinna, kobbari, mir, 

 kalapa, (Mai.), pol (Sinh.), ong (Burm.), niu (Poly.), etc., etc. This tall 

 pinnate-leaved palm is indigenous to the islands of the Indian and Pacific 

 Oceans, but now cultivated throughout the tropics in all warm mo:-?t 

 situations, such as along the sea-coasts of India and Burma. 



Habitat. Habitat. The cocoanut is essentially a tropical plant, and while it 



can grow up to the 25th degree N. or S. latitudes, it but rarely ripens fruit 

 in the extreme limits of its region. From the Bay of Bengal it follows 

 the Gangetic basin inland some 200 miles, but on the coast of India generally 

 does not penetrate for more than half that distance. Buchanan-Hamilton 

 (Stat. Ace. Dinaj., 1833, 150) found that it ripened fruit with difficulty at 

 Dinajpur, but I have seen it do so at Falakata, which is considerably 

 farther to the north, and a writer (Journ. Agri.-Hort. Soc. Ind., 1898) speaks 

 of it fruiting freely at Dam Dim in Jalpaiguri, or 300 miles from the sea It 

 also fruits abundantly in South Sylhet. It would thus appear that the 

 limit of fruit-production, viz. the 25th degree, is frequently exceeded in 

 the immediate basins of large rivers. Hence it may even grow in Assam, 

 though it will there ripen its fruits very indifferently. On the west and 

 south coasts of India, on the other hand, its cultivated distribution is 

 much more restricted. In Kolaba and elsewhere it may be found on the 

 immediate shore and for 50 to 80 miles inland, ascending the hills to about 

 3,000 feet. Further to the South in Mysore, for example, it passes inland 

 to nearly double that distance. It very possibly gave the name to the 

 Cocos Islands and is plentiful on the Laccadive and Nicobar groups, bu f 

 not in South Andaman. Gamble says " the cocoanut palm is not, like 

 the palmyra, a forest tree, though it may be seen practically in forest, 

 grown in gregarious plantations all round the Indian coasts and on some 

 of the islands." The Indian region may thus be said to be the lower basins 

 of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Irrawaddy, also the Malabar and Coro- 

 mandel Coasts and adjacent islands Madras Presidency being the chief 

 producing area. 



History. On the assumption that it originated in the islands of the Indian 

 and Pacific, there would be little to prevent its having been carried even by 

 currents of the sea, or in some cases by primitive man, to the western shores of 

 America and to the coasts of Southern China, Siam, Burma and India, in prehis- 

 toric times. This is so natural and obvious a supposition as to render most of 

 the learned arguments indulged in by authors on this subject superfluous. The 

 Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch travellers may have greatly aided in its distri- 

 bution, more especially in conveying it to the east coast of America, to the West 

 Indies and to Africa, but a wide natural distribution had doubtless taken place 

 long anterior to the discovery of America. It is, therefore, hardly of serious 

 consequence whether or not it may have been indigenous to tropical America as 



Insular Habitat, well as to certain of the islands of the Pacific. Its natural habitat is undoubtedly 

 maritime. It is known by so many widely diversified names, in the regions of its 

 present production, as to necessitate a vast antiquity. But as possibly indicative 

 of a stronger claim for an Asiatic than an American origin, derivatives from its 



Classic Names. Sanskrit name ndri-kela have accompanied the palm eastward very nearly to 

 the shores of America and westward to Madagascar and Turkey, to a far greater 

 extent than can be shown for any other classic or ancient name that it possesses. 

 This does not of necessity involve its being accepted as indigenous to India, but 

 simply that its extended cultivation accompanied Sanskrit influence. 



350 



Proximity to 

 the Sea. 



Indian Area. 



History. 



Distribution. 



