COOK — THE COCONUT PALM IN AMEKICA. 323 



of the coconut, and some varieties of the peach also yield a consid- 

 erable percentage of seedlings that retain the parental characters. 

 The vast majority of varieties of cultivated trees have to be prop- 

 agated from cuttings or grafts. The reason for this contrast be- 

 tween trees and annual plants is doubtless to be found in the greater 

 amount of time required for the selective breeding of trees. The 

 existence of mutative varieties might be considered as an evidence 

 that the culture of the coconut palm is older than that of the date 

 palm. That date varieties are usually propagated from cuttings 

 should not interfere with the development of mutative varieties, 

 but the dioecious habit of the date may be a more serious obstacle. 



The evolutionary interest of the varieties of the coconut does not 

 lie, therefore, in any difference of behavior from other plants of like 

 history, but in their complete agreement, and in helping to show that 

 even in plants so peculiar as the palms the same law of evolution holds, 

 that narrow segregation, or inbreeding, is accompanied by mutative 

 variations, often distinctly degenerate from the biological standpoint. 

 The peach palm, the coconut, the oil palm, a and the date have series of 

 similar variations, indicating that like evolutionary causes are active 

 in the production of like effects, in spite of the fact that the 

 palms themselves and the conditions under which they live are very 

 different. 



Although the disparity in coconut varieties between the East 

 Indies and tropical America is very great, it is a mistake to suppose 

 that there are no distinct varieties in America. Velasco's account of 

 the four different kinds of coconuts in Colombia has already been 

 quoted, and reference has been made to the small variety found on 

 Cocos Island by Professor Pittier as distinct from the ordinary com- 

 mercial variety grown on the adjacent shores of Costa Rica. Mr. 

 O. W. Barrett, who formerly resided in Porto Rico, states that there 

 are two distinct varieties on that island, one with yellowish leaves 

 and fruits, the other with green. The milk oi the latter is considered 

 preferable while the yellow variety has the thicker "meat." It is 

 stated by planters and importers that the coconuts of the coast of 

 Colombia, sometimes called San Bias coconuts, are considered dif- 

 ferent from those grown in other places in the Caribbean region. 

 The ready separation of the meat from the shell gives these nuts a 

 special value for manufacturing purposes. 



A further example of what may be a distinctively American 

 variety of the coconut was found in 1902 at Tapachula, a town in the 



a Preuss, P., Ber. Deutsch. Pharm. Gesellsch., vol. 13, p. 109. 1903. Fendler, G., 

 loc. cit., p. 119. The latter paper describes three varieties from the Togo colony, 

 the first with the shell so thin that it can be broken with the teeth, the second with 

 green instead of red fruits, the third with the leaf segments united and the leaf bases 

 persistent. See also The varieties of the oil palm in West Africa, Kew Bulletin of 

 Miscellaneous Information, 1909, p. 33. 



