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whose native country is unknown, and having recorded some 

 observations on the flowers of Cocos nucifera, Dr. Beccari devotes 

 the last half of his paper to a discussion of the disputed question 

 of the original home of the latter palm. 



On this point the generally accepted opinion had attributed 

 an Asiatic origin to this palm, a view accepted by De Candolle 

 in his classic "Origine des plantes cultivees.'' But in 1901, Mr. 

 O. F. Cook, in a paper published in the seventh volume of the 

 Contributions of the United States National Herbarium, put 

 forth a well supported argument in favor of "the alkaline regions 

 of the Andes of Colombia, — in valleys remote from the sea," 

 as the cradle of the cocoanut. From both these views Dr. 

 Beccari dissents. 



He calls attention to the fact that, in determining the place 

 of origin of a plant or an animal, we must consider not alone the 

 present configuration of the earth's surface, but we must go 

 back at least to the tertiary period, when the ancestors of the 

 organic forms of today were assuming their development {s'etre 

 effectuee la plasmation) . It is evident that during that period 

 great geographical changes were effected in the Pacific basin in 

 connection with the elevation of the Andes. 



The weightiest argument in favor of the American origin of 

 the Coco Palm is drawn from the fact that, with the exception of 

 the African oil palm, Elaeis guineensis , all the other members of 

 the tribe are indisputably American. But none of them are, 

 Dr. Beccari claims, truly related to Cocos nucifera, which is 

 strictly monotypic, as it is also regarded by Mr. Cook. More- 

 over, all these relatives, more or less remote, inhabit regions on 

 the eastern side of the Cordilleras, which immense barrier sepa- 

 rates them from the present actual center of distribution of the 

 Coco Palm. 



The author names several other palms whose presence in 

 America is best accounted for on the hypothesis of the existence, 

 in a former geological age, of a more extensive land area in the 

 Pacific, than now remains. 



While the Coco Palm may, under favorable circumstances, 

 live at places distant from the sea, essentially it is a plant of 



