290 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 



The meat of the ripe nut, for which coconuts are imported into 

 temperate countries, is not the part most valued in the tropics, but 

 the "milk" of the unripe nut. On many of the coral islands of the 

 Pacific, where there are no springs or other supplies of water, the 

 natives could not survive without the milk of the coconut. In Porto 

 Rico and elsewhere in America the coconut is also valued chiefly as 

 the source of a beverage, but where fresh water is as abundant as in 

 the West Indies the milk of the coconut is a luxury rather than a 

 necessity. The unripe nuts are carried to the towns and sold as a 

 beverage, like lemonade or soda water in temperate regions. 



The meat of the coconut has little more importance in the American 

 tropics than in the United States, being used mostly for pastry and 

 confectionary, and not as a staple article of diet. Even the oil of the 

 coconut which serves so many culinary and other domestic purposes 

 in the East Indies is almost unknown in the American tropics. The 

 extraction of the oil and its use in cooking are said to be practiced in 

 British Honduras and in Trinidad, but by European residents rather 

 than by the natives of the country. There are no such multitudinous 

 applications of the shells, husks, fibers, leaves, sap, and all other 

 parts of the palm as in the East Indies. 



On the west coast of Mexico, according to Dr. Edward Palmer, use 

 is made of the so-called "coconut apple" (manzana de coco), in reality 

 the swollen cotyledon of the germinating nut. The cotyledon gradu- 

 ally absorbs the food materials stored in the meat of the nut, at the 

 same time increasing in size till it fills the whole cavity of the shell. 

 The fleshy part of the cotyledon is said to have a pleasant, sweetish 

 taste, and to be much more delicate and more readily digestible than 

 the meat itself. The coconut "apples" are also dried and are sold 

 in the native markets in this condition. Plate 53, figure 2, shows a 

 photograph of two dried cotyledons of the coconut. There is noth- 

 ing to show whether the use of the cotyledon represents a native cus- 

 tom in Mexico or was imported from the Pacific Islands, where it 

 also exists. The making of fermented drink called "tuba" from the 

 sap of the palm appears to have been introduced into the vicinity of 

 Acapulco from the Philippines, as indicated by the presence of the 

 Filipino names. 



An additional reason why the culture of the coconut palm was not 

 flourishing in the West Indies at the time of the discovery is found 

 in a fact of history. Columbus and other early explorers made 

 repeated statements to the effect that the inhabitants of the islands 

 were everywhere at war with the Caribs, the seafaring cannibals who 

 preyed upon the more peaceable agricultural natives of the islands. 

 The fear of the Caribs kept the natives from living near the coasts. 



