298 CONTRIBUTIONS FKOM THE NATIONAL HEKBARIUM. 



huts, surrounded by fences of tall poles ornamented by large shells; everything 

 shewing the natives to be a different race of beings from the Australians. 



The explanation of the absence of coconuts in Australia has been 

 found by all travelers in the fact that the Australian natives differ 

 from those of all the Pacific islands in being nonagricultural. The 

 same is true of another peculiar and very primitive people living on 

 the Andaman Islands of the Indian Ocean. With them also the 

 coconut palm was lacking, though their islands lie in the midst of 

 the East Indies, where the coconut and its numerous varieties have 

 been supposed to originate and distribute themselves by sea. 6 



No other inhabited tropical coasts and islands of the Pacific and 

 Indian oceans appear to be without coco palms, but no other peoples 

 failed to plant and care for them. Throughout this region there is 

 no difference of popular opinion regarding the strict dependence of 

 the coconut upon man. The idea of wild coconuts planting them- 

 selves on tropical seacoasts is strictly the product of the imagination 

 of authors who have written books about the Tropics without visiting 

 such regions, or at least without taking into account the opinions of 

 those who have first-hand familiarity with the habits of the palm- 

 Throughout the South Sea islands coco-nut palms abound, and oil may be obtained 

 in various places. Some of the uninhabited islands are covered with dense groves, and 

 the ungathered nuts, which have fallen year after year, lie upon the ground in incred- 

 ible quantities. Two or three men, provided with the necessary apparatus for pressing 

 out the oil, will, in the course of a week or two, obtain enough to load one of the large 

 sea canoes. . . . 



The coco-nut is essentially a maritime plant, and is always one of the first to make 

 its appearance on coral and other new islands in tropical seas, the nut being floated 

 to them, and rather benefiting than otherwise by its immersion in the salt water. c 



The authority of Simmonds might seem to give weight to these 

 statements, but no such ideas are found in the account of the coconut 

 palm in that author's subsequent manual of Tropical Agriculture. 

 The islands where the coconuts established themselves and accumu- 

 lated in "incredible quantities" were never specified. d 



a Jukes, Voyage of the Fly to the Eastern Archipelago, 1842, vol. 1, p. 132. (Lon- 

 don, 1847.) 



b It is interesting to note that with the exception of a few spots, evidently planted 

 by the early colonists, cocoa-nuts do not occur in the Andamans, and this is especially 

 remarkable from the fact that the conditions are favorable for their propagation. — 

 Safford, W. E., The Abbott Collection from the Andaman Islands, Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, Ann. Rep., 1901, pp. 477-492. (1902.) 



c Simmonds, P. I,., The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom, pp. 549, 

 550. (London, 1854.) 



d If anything further is needed to show that Simmonds had no direct knowledge 

 of the coconut palm when the earlier work was written, his fanciful statement regard- 

 ing the germination and growth of the palms will certainly suffice. Almost every 

 line contains a fresh error. 



"The coco-nut is usually planted as follows: — Selecting a suitable place, you drop 

 into the ground a fully ripe nut, and leave it. In a few days a thin lance-like shoot 



