288 CONTRIBUTIONS FEOM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 



Hatum chonta, that is, the largest of all palms. Its nut (coco) is commonly as large 

 as the head of a man, covered with a tow which is the best kind for gun wads. The 

 white marrow is very good, thick as a finger, and from it, by pressure, is extracted a 

 very rich and sweet oil. The milky liquid is also sweet, refreshing, and good to 

 drink, and from the nuts are made large vessels to hold liquors and for other purposes. 



Sunt chonta is the palm with the long nut, slightly smaller than the preceding. It 

 has the same properties and the tree is a little smaller. 



Vira chonta, the palm with buttery fruit. It is as high as the preceding, but much 

 more slender and with narrow leaves. The fruit is somewhat smaller, almost spherical, 

 with little or no firm marrow, and the milk so thick that after a little beating it coagu- 

 lates into a very rich butter for eating or lighting. It is peculiar to the River Cauca, 

 on the confines of the province of Popayan, where the Spaniards first discovered it in 

 1545, one of them, the historian Chieca de Leon, describing it. It is thus seen how 

 lightly a thousand falsehoods are written by some, like Francisco Hernandez, native 

 of Mexico, who in his Latin history asserts that cocos were brought by the Spaniards 

 from the East Indies to the West. At their first entrance into South America they 

 found very old palms full of fruit, which never occurs until after the age of 16-20 

 years with these large kinds of cocos. 



Yurac chonta, the palm which yields the white coco, not only the marrow but all 

 the shell being white, and this, being very thick, is made into cups for chocolate 

 with embossed work. The meat is not very good and the tree rather small. * * * 



Almost all of these palms are from the province of Maynas, and some of them from 

 Guayaquil and Popayan. a 



Velasco does not give any definite citation of the books of Her- 

 nandez, and may not have known them at first hand. In reality, 

 Hernandez does not seem to have said that coconuts were brought 

 from the East Indies. He states that coconuts were not found in 

 New Spain (Mexico), but he reports at the same time that they were 

 abundant in the West Indies as well as in the East, so that the idea 

 of an introduction by the Spaniards is rather denied than affirmed. 



V.elasco's reference to the use of the small shells of the yurac chonta 

 for embossed work may have interest in connection with the photo- 

 graph of the carved shell of a small coconut shown in plate 53, figure 1. 

 The specimen from which this photograph was taken was presented 

 to the writer, some years ago by Gen. E. A. Lever, of New Orleans, 

 having been found by him in a grave in the Chiriqui district of 

 Panama in digging for the gold ornaments and pottery that are 

 often found in the prehistoric graves of that region. 



ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE COCONUT IN TROPICAL AMERICA. 



While the early records appear sufficient to establish the existence 

 of the palm in the New World at the time of the early discoveries, 

 they certainly do not indicate that it was a food plant of primary 

 importance in any part of tropical America, unless it were along the 

 Pacific coast of Panama and Costa Rica. If the coconut had had 

 any such prominence among the Caribs and Arawacks of the West 

 Indies as among the Polynesians and Malays of the East it is incredible 



a Velasco, J., Historia del Reino de Quito, vol. 1, pp. 52-54. (Quito, 1844.) 



