230 



in height ; the first branches commence not from below upward as in 

 other trees, but extend very straight out for such a distance that it 

 seems marvelous that they do not break with the weight that they 

 carry, and it is on this account that they are so capacious and make so 

 much shade ; these branches are commonly as thick as a man's body 

 * ^ * ; the leaves are dark-green, delicate and toothed,* if memory 

 serves me well ; I do not know that there is in Castile anything to 

 which to compare them, unless it may be, if I am not mistaken, those 

 of what we call the tree of paradise." 



In view of the evidence of the kind quoted and of various cor- 

 roborative traditions, t it would appear that tropical America has 

 a good claim to being considered the native home of the silk- 

 cotton tree. Just what the direct evidence may be for Picker- 

 ing's X unqualified assertion that the tree " by European colon- 

 ists was carried westward across the Pacific to the Philippines," 

 and also to India and Africa, we have been unable to discover, 

 but the idea seems plausible. Mr. George Watt, in his " Diction- 

 ary of the Economic Products of India" § remarks that "No 

 writer definitel)' affirms that Eriodciidron is wild ; nearly all speak 

 of it as cultivated." If evidence can be found showing the exist- 

 ence of tliis tree in the East Indies prior to the discovery of 

 America, it will naturally raise some interesting questions of the 

 kind recently discussed by Mr. O. F. Cook,]] who finds grounds 

 for believing that the cocoa palm and several other important food 

 plants of wide distribution in the tropics originated in America 



* The editor of the " Historia " states that Las Casas began the writing of it when 

 he was 78 years old, which would be after his return to Spain. 



f There is a Cuban tradition to the effect that the first mass on the present site of 

 the city of Havana, in 1519, was celebrated, according to a tablet erected in 1754 in 

 commemoration of the event, under "una frondosa seiba." A photograph of this 

 tablet is reproduced in " El Mundo lUustrado" of November 20, 1904 (p. 310), a 

 copy of which we owe to the courtesy of Professor de la Maza of Havana. The ac- 

 companying account in "El Mundo Illustrado" states that the original ceiba was 

 cut down in 1753, was replaced by another which dried out during the building of 

 the commemorative "El Templete" in 1828, but seeded two other trees, one of 

 which still remains. 



% Chronological History of Plants, 783. 



§ 3 : 260. 1890. 



II The origin and distribution of the cocoa palm. Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 7 : i-v, 

 257-293- 1901- 



The American origin of agriculture. Pop. Sci. Monthly 61 : 492-505. O 1902. 



