308 CONTKIBUTIONS FKOM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 



DOMESTICATION OF PALMS IN ANCIENT AMERICA. 



The general acceptance of the idea that agriculture and other arts 

 of civilization originated in the Old World has undoubtedly tended 

 to complicate the question of the origin of the coconut palm, as 

 studied by Seemann, De Candolle, and other writers on the subject. 

 As the art of agriculture must have begun with the domestication of 

 wild plants, it may be argued that the plants must have existed in 

 the regions where domestication was practiced. The fact that the 

 date, the betel nut (Areca), the Palmyra palm (Borassus), the toddy 

 palm (Caryota), and the sugar palm (Arenga) were domesticated in 

 the East Indies would naturally incline the ethnologist to include the 

 coconut in the same list, especially if there appeared to be a differ- 

 ence of botanical opinion on the question of origin. It is important, 

 therefore, from the ethnological standpoint, to take into account the 

 fact that several other palms were more or less completely domesti- 

 cated in ancient America, some of them relatives of the coconut. 

 The importance of the Old World series of domesticated palms appears 

 greater because higher stages of civilization were reached in the Old 

 World, but the relative importance of palms in the indigenous agri- 

 culture of America appears to be fully as great as in the Old World 

 Tropics. 



DOMESTICATION OF THE PEACH PALM IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



The Indians of the northwestern part of South America — the same 

 region that must be looked upon as the original home of the coconut — 

 domesticated the so-called " peach palm" (Guilielma), one of the 

 numerous relatives of the coconut palm. (Pis. 55 and 56.) The 

 peach palm is armed all over with long, slender, shining black spines, 

 sharp as needles, but in spite of this unfriendly exterior the Indians 

 have found it worthy of cultivation. Its handsome red or yellow fruits 

 serve as an important article of diet among the natives of a vast region 

 along the eastern slopes of the Andes, from Brazil and Peru through 

 Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia, and even beyond the Isthmus of 

 Panama in the Central American Republic of Costa Rica. 



The peach palm appears to be as thoroughly domesticated among 

 the Indians of South America as the date palm among the Arabs. 

 Several botanical explorers of South America have described this 

 palm and its importance among the Indians. The following extract 

 from Alfred Russel Wallace's "Palm Trees of the Amazon" shows 

 its status in the interior districts of Brazil: 



The fruit is about the size of an apricot, of a triangular oval shape, and fine reddish- 

 yellow colour. In most instances the seed is abortive, the whole fruit being a farina- 

 ceous mass. Occasionally, however, fruits are found containing the perfect stony 

 seed, and they are then nearly double the usual size. This production of undeveloped 



