COOK THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 303 



other plants, where special conditions enable the palms to persist. 

 Some of the Xorth American palms that require sunlight have taken 

 refuge in deserts of Mexico, while others are confined to the fire-swept 

 pine barrens of Florida. A third series, represented by Thrinax and 

 allied genera, occupies the exposed precipices and crags of the dry 

 limestone hills and keys of the West Indies. A fourth series is 

 limited to swamps or river banks (Augustinea), and a fifth to high 

 mountain summits (Acrista). With the exceptions of the under- 

 growth palms and the slender rattans and similar climbing types, 

 there are very few true forest species able to secure a footing or even 

 to hold their own in undisturbed tropical tree growth. 



These limitations are shared by the coconut and all of its nearer 

 relatives, which inhabit relatively open interior districts, rocky 

 mountain slopes, and barren or exposed situations where vegetation 

 of other types is comparatively sparse. Some of the species frequent 

 river banks, but these are distant and rather degenerate cousins of 

 the coconut. Few members of the family, if any, are natives of truly 

 maritime districts. Very few palms, even of other families, are to be 

 reckoned as definitely maritime plants, for while several frequent the 

 seashore, such as the palmettos of Florida and the West Indies, they 

 are also able to grow away from the sea. A species of Phoenix (pos- 

 sibly P. reclinata), native in Liberia, is confined to the sea beach, 

 occurring only in the outermost zone of shrubby vegetation stunted 

 by the salt spray, but this apparent preference is likely to be due to 

 the fact that the sea beach affords more of the necessary exposure 

 to the sun than can be obtained in the adjacent forest. 



For the want of a more distinctive term, the larger palms are called 

 " trees," but they might be described more correctly as overgrown 

 herbs. Their trunks are always constructed on the same general 

 plan as the cornstalk or the sugar cane, consisting of a central mass of 

 pith with a hard external shell, but without the true bark which 

 enables the trunks of other trees to increase gradually in thickness 

 after beginning their growth as slender shoots. The young coconut 

 palm is under the necessity of producing many leaves at the surface 

 of the ground before the trunk can attain its full diameter and begin 

 its upward columnar growth. 



The two or three years that are lost before the upward growth of the 

 trunk can begin are a very serious handicap in the race for existence 

 among the luxuriant and tangled growth of shrubs, trees, and vines 

 which promptly overrun any abandoned land in the humid Tropics. 

 Exogenous plants begin the elongation of the stem immediately after 

 germination, and usually produce much longer internodes in the shade 

 than when exposed to the sunlight. Unless the human friends of the 

 young coconut are at hand to keep down the other vegetation the 

 period of infancy is not survived. 



