280 CONTRIBUTIONS FEOM THE NATIONAL, HERBAEIUM. 



contrasted with their supposed absence on the Atlantic coasts and 

 islands. De Candolle alludes to Oviedo only in the following passage : 



Oviedo, writing in 1526, in the first years of the conquest of Mexico, says that the 

 cocoa-nut palm was abundant on the coast of the Pacific in the province of the Cacique 

 Chiman, and he clearly describes the species. This does not prove the tree to be 

 wild. In southern Asia, especially in the islands, the cocoa-nut is both wild and cul- 

 tivated. The smaller the islands, and the lower and the more subject to the influence 

 of the sea air, the more the cocoa-nut predominates and attracts the attention of 

 travelers. « 



Oviedo' s statement is not the only one that has to be explained if 

 we are to deny the existence of the coconut palm in the West Indies 

 when the Spaniards arrived. Columbus himself recorded the finding 

 of coconuts on the north coast of Cuba, near Puerto Principe, only a 

 little over a month after his first landing in the Bahamas. 



The Admiral got into the boat, and went to visit the islands he had not yet seen to 

 the S. W. He saw many more very fertile and pleasant islands, with a great depth 

 between them. Some of them had springs of fresh water, and he believed that the 

 water of those streams came from some sources at the summits of the mountains. He 

 went on, and found a beach bordering on very sweet water, which was very cold. 

 There was a beautiful meadow, and many very tall palms. They found a large nut of 

 the kind belonging to India, great rats, and enormous crabs. He saw many birds, and 

 there was a strong smell of musk, which made him think it must be there. This day 

 the two eldest of the six youths brought from the Rio de Mares, who were on board the 

 caravel Nina, made their escape. & 



The coconut was known to mediaeval Europe only as Nux Indica, 

 or Indian Nut, the name " coconut," though stated in dictionaries to 

 be derived from Latin and Greek words meaning nut or seed, seems 

 not to have been applied to the coconut till after the discovery of 

 America. Other lexicographers have undertaken to derive coco 

 from Spanish or Portuguese words meaning ape or ogre, an applica- 

 tion which is explained by allusion to the three pits or eyes of the 

 coconut which afford a grotesque suggestion of the face of a man or 

 a monkey. It is quite possible, however, that the Spaniards adopted 

 the word coco from the natives of the West Indies as they did many 

 other names of agricultural plants, such as "mais" (Indian corn), 

 "aji" (capsicum), "achiote" (anatto), "platano" (banana), "mani" 

 (peanut), etc. In the case of the banana it is evident that a native 

 word, closely resembling platano led the early explorers to suppose 

 that the banana was the actual platano or plane tree of which the 

 Spaniards of that time knew only the name as it occurs in the Bible. 

 The histories written by Oviedo and Acosta both contain chapters 

 explaining that the plane tree of Scripture was not the same as the 

 "platano" of the West Indies. 



a De Candolle, A., Origin of Cultivated Plants, ed. 2, p. 431. (1886.) 

 & Journal of the first voyage of Columbus, trans, by C. R. Markham, p. 80. (Hakluyt 

 Society, 1893.) 



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