COOK — THE COCONUT PALM IN AMEftlCA. 321 



reversion would be particularly strong in plants like the palms, cross- 

 fertilized by the wind. 



If economic importance and multiplicity of variations were to 

 decide the question of origin, coffee could be proved to be a native 

 of the East Indies or of Central America, instead of Abyssinia. Many 

 striking variations of the coffee plant have arisen in the American 

 Tropics, and none, as far as known, in Abyssinia. The breadfruit 

 could be shown by such reasoning to be a native of the eastern 

 archipelagoes of Polynesia, where most of the specialized varieties are 

 found and where the tree has an economic importance and an agri- 

 cultural popularity far beyond that enjoyed in its original Malayan 

 home. 



If the Malayan varieties of the coco palm are to be accepted as 

 proof of anything, it is that the wild ancestral type of the species 

 has not existed in that part of the world during the period in which 

 the diverse mutations have arisen. The relatively unmodified 

 coconuts of America, on the other hand, may indicate the compara- 

 tively recent presence of the "unimproved" wild stock, and corrob- 

 orate the evidence afforded by the geographical distribution of the 

 related species of Cocos and the presence of the coco palm itself, in 

 the salt-spring regions of the interior of Colombia. 



The history of the coco palm has been discussed recently at some 

 length by Professor De Vries as affording evidence that the numerous 

 cultivated forms of the species have originated during the period of 

 domestication and do not represent separate domestications of wild 

 species or varieties already diverse. There could seem to be no 

 question that this is true of the coconut as of other cultivated plants. a 



The inference to be drawn from the fact that Cocos nucifera, as 

 now cultivated in the Old World Tropics and made up of a large 

 number of very distinct varieties, is not that wild species are so 

 constituted, but that domestication conduces to the formation of 

 the diverse varieties. The wild plants show individual diversity, 

 the cultivated plants varietal diversity. The individual members 

 of wild species are generally more diverse than individuals of domes- 

 ticated varieties. On the other hand, wild species seldom present 

 any such measure of diversity as exists among domesticated varieties. 



Trees of the larger varieties of the coco palm grow to a height of 

 50 to 100 feet, but a dwarf kind mentioned by Watt reaches a height 

 of only 10 or 15 feet. The nuts differ correspondingly in abundance, 

 size, and shape. In some varieties they are comparable in size to a 

 man's head; in others to a turkey's egg. In shape they may be 

 spherical or pointed at one or both ends, or with prominent angles. 

 The outside of the husk may be green, yellow, red, bluish, brown, 



Q De Vries, H., Species and Varieties, their Origin by Mutation, pp. 82-89. (Chi- 

 cago, 1005.) 



