280 ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE COCOA PALM. 



incredible that the nuts did not find their way ashore from shipwrecks, 

 if indeed the} r were not commonly taken on land by those engaged in 

 drying the trepang. 



On the Queensland coast the finding of cocoanuts, and even the 

 existence of an occasional "wild" cocoa palm, within recent years is 

 claimed by Hedley, 1 but he agrees that even the eating of the stranded 

 nuts bjr the natives is no adequate explanation of the complete failure 

 of the species to become established on any of the shores of the con- 

 tinent, and if it be admitted that the absence of the cocoanut from 

 Australia is due to its inability to maintain an existence without the 

 continuous help of man, rather than to the lack of all accidental 

 opportunity to reach the shores of that continent, the probability that 

 its general distribution is the result of human agency is greatly 

 increased. For whatever be the real nature of the difficulty, it is 

 evident that oceanic distribution has proved radically inefficient in the 

 only instance where the factor of fostering human care was eliminated, 

 and this not on an insignificant island but on a continental coast line 

 with a variet} r of soils and climates, and where subsequent experiment 

 by civilized men has shown that the cocoanut will thrive abundantly. 



Rutland 2 has already pointed out that the distribution of the cocoanut 

 in the southern seas "exactly coincides with the extension of the art 

 of agriculture," and he adds the pertinent though not entirety accurate 

 observation : 



... If the cocoanut palm was transported from Polynesia to America as a culti- 

 vated plant, it would probably be found in cultivation on that continent instead of in 

 a wild state, the ancient inhabitants having made little use of the fruit. Throughout 

 Polynesia the cocoanut Avas of the utmost importance, as many of the islands would 

 have been uninhabitable without it. If its presence on these islands was due to 

 cultivation, we have in it another important evidence of the colonization of the 

 region. 



HUMAN ASSISTANCE NECESSARY. 



After his extended voyage among the Pacific islands Pickering 3 

 published the following opinions combining the results of his own 

 inquiries and the consensus of opinion of resident Europeans: 



With the above exceptions, the useful plants appear to be of foreign origin. The 

 cocoa palm is the principal one, and so invariably is its presence attributable to 

 human operations that it has become a guide to the traders in seeking for natives. 



Notwithstanding that the fruit is well adapted for floating uninjured over a wide 

 expanse, I have never met with an instance of the cocoa palm having spontaneously 

 extended itself from island to island. Two distinct varieties are recognized at the 

 Fiji Islands. 



C. nucifera throughout the Pacific occurs only on those islands to which it has been 

 carried by the natives, a fait well known to traders; was observed by myself only 

 under cultivation throughout the islands of the Pacific and the Malayan archipelago. 



1 Memoir III, Australian Museum, Sydney, p. 22 (1896). 



2 Trans. New Zealand Institute, vol. 29, p. 13 (1896). 



3 Races of Men (London, 1863), and Chronological History of Plants (Boston, 

 1879) . 



