270 ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE COCOA PALM. 



introduced into Brazil by the Portuguese, Nieuhoff recorded a native 

 name for it in 1647. 



There also grow coco trees in Brasil, called by the natives inajaguacuiba, and the 

 fruit inaj aguacu . : 



But, as Nieuhoff had already explained that the fruit of the pindava 

 palm (Maximiliana ?) was called inajamira, meaning "small cocoanut," 

 we may be dealing, as in the case of coyolli, with a recently extended 

 use of some native word or combination misinterpreted by Nieuhoff. 



• THE COCOA PALM AN AMERICAN SPECIES. 

 BOTANICAL EVIDENCE. 



If the historical evidence is ample for the establishment of the exist- 

 ence of the cocoanut in America before the advent of Europeans, the 

 botanical evidence is no less conclusive to the effect that it had been 

 there a long time. In other words, it is a member of the American 

 and not of the Asiatic flora, though the reasons for this belief have 

 been very inadequately appreciated. Thus, De Candolle noted the 

 existence of eleven other American species of Cocos as one of the argu- 

 ments for the American origin of C. nucifera, though this fact 

 appeared to be outweighed by others indicating an Asiatic nativity. 

 It is not, however, a matter of eleven or more species of Cocos, but 

 of the whole family Cocaceae, consisting of about 20 genera and 200 

 species, all strictly American with the single exception of the rather 

 aberrant African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), which has, however, 

 an American relative referred to the same genus. Several fossil 

 palms from western Europe are supposed to belong to this group, but 

 the cocoanut is the sole 2 representative which has been connected with 

 Asia and the Malay region, though no reason has ever been advanced 

 to show why the other members of the group could not have estab- 

 lished themselves and maintained an existence under Malayan condi- 

 tions, which are in every way adapted to palms, and which support 

 hundreds of indigenous species belonging to other families of the group. 

 Nor do we any longer take refuge in a suggestion formerly used in deal- 

 ing with difficult cases of geographical distribution, and argue that the 

 cocoanut and the banana were such desirable fruits that they were sepa- 

 rately^ created or bestowed upon the inhabitants of both hemispheres. 

 The theory of the independent development of the same species, how- 

 ever, is still occasionally drawn upon, and may have a certain propriety 

 in dealing with the phylogenv of groups which have undergone a par- 

 allel development. Thus, if other species of Cocos, or closely allied 

 genera, existed in the tropics of the eastern hemisphere, we might not 



Churchill's Travels, vol. 2, p. 134 (1732). 



2 Cocos mammUaris Blanco, from the Philippines, is based on one of the numerous 

 Malayan culture varieties of C. nudfera. 



