THE FALM8 OF BIHTIHK INDIA AND CEYLON. 523 



ders ill not improbable that the original home of this palm was on the 

 islands near the Isthmus of Panama, and that the nuts were trans- 

 ported thence hj westerljr currents to Cocos Island, 200 miles west 

 of the coast, which was found densely covered with coco-nut trees 

 by its first discoverer, without any sign of human habitations. From 

 there it is not difficult to explain the further spread of the nuts by 

 the regular currents and by storms to the Sandwich, Marquesas, and 

 other islands of the Pacific, and to the islands of the Indian Archi- 

 pelago, whence it maj^ have been introduced into India. A. De 

 Candolle seems inclined to accept the American origin of the coco- 

 nut, and Griesebach entertains no doubt on the subject. Cook has 

 recently shown that the coco-nut is in all probability a native of 

 America. At present it is found in every part of the tropics, where 

 it flourishes in the greatest luxuriance in the vicinit}^ of the sea, 

 especially a few feet above high-water mark. Although that is its 

 chief habitat, it cannot be termed an exclusively littoral plant, for 

 it has been met far inland, e.g., at Merida in Yucatan, at Patna in 

 Bengal, at Concepcion del Pao. With regard to the latter place 

 Humboldt remarks : " I was the more struck with the fact (of 

 finding the coco-nut tree at this great distance from the sea) be- 

 cause the veracity of those travellers who have asserted the exist- 

 ence of this Palm at Timbuctoo, in the centre of Africa, has been 

 called in c[uestion. Bonpland and I saw it repeatedly amid the cul- 

 tivated spots on the Eio Magdalena, more than a hundred leagues 

 from the coast." There is, on the other hand, no doubt that the 

 Coco-nut Palm refuses to grow in many countries any distance 

 inland, with as much pertinacity as it does in the conservatories of 

 Europe, where, after having attained the age of eight or ten years, 

 it begins to sicken, and soon dies. Seemann affirms, from personal 

 knowledge, '' that numerous trials have been made to cultivate it 

 in the central parts of the Isthmus of Panama, but that all of them 

 have failed/' and he adds : " The causes therefore which regulate 

 this curious phenomenon are still involved in obscurity, and I 

 should not be surprised to hear that theorists, eager to account for 

 this apparent contradictions in the distribution, had been driven 

 to the necessity of making several species of this Palm, which, as 

 there exist several well-marked varieties, would not be a task at- 

 tended by great technical difficulties." — ^ Whenever the Coco-nut 

 Palm ventures beyond the limits of the tropics, it loses in elegance 

 of aspect and power of productiveness. In the Sandwich Islands, 

 just at the edge of the torrid zone, it has a mean look, and yields 

 fruit in comparatively small quantities. 



Flowers throtighout the year and the nuts require 9-10 months 

 to come to maturitj^. 



Uses. — Few of any products of the vegetable kingdom are so 

 valuable to man in those countries where it grows as the Coco-nut 

 18 



