No. 57. — 1906.] coconut cultivation. 



43 



of Sumatra and Java, and surmises that nuts floated thence 

 both east and west — eastwards to the islands of the Pacific 

 and the coast of Central America, and westward to Ceylon 

 and India and the east coast of Africa. He considers that 

 the introduction of the coconut into Ceylon, India, and 

 China does not date back beyond 3,000 years ; but that it 

 floated by sea to the coasts of America and Africa at a more 

 remote epoch. The native Sinhalese tradition that locates 

 the earliest specimen or grove of this palm in the neighbour- 

 hood of Weligama, on our southern coast, is in strict accord- 

 ance with what might be expected under De Candolle's 

 theory. [A glance at the map of Asia would seem to 

 show how readily coconuts could float from Sumatra to 

 Ceylon. After the eruption of the volcano Krakatao 

 in Java, in August, 1883, the south-east shores of Ceylon 

 were invaded by tidal waves carrying ashes and other 

 debris.] The tradition is that a king of Ceylon was a leper, 

 or afflicted with some skin disease, and that he (Kusta 

 Raja) was cured by sea-bathing and the milk of the coconut, 

 or the use of its expressed oil. The legend goes on to say 

 that the king found no people where he found the coconut 

 palm of his dream, as if to testify to its introduction through 

 nuts carried across the sea from Sumatra and taking root on 

 the sea coast near Weligama.* 



* The affinity of a great majority of the genera (represented on our Ceylon 

 south-west coast) is distinctly Malayan as opposed to Indian. — Trimen. 

 Curiously enough to Trimen's remark " Coconut cultivated throughout the 

 tropics, the origin is not known," Sir Joseph Hooker adds : " Indigenous 

 according to Kunz in the Cocos and Andaman Islands." But Dr. Henry 

 Marshall, Deputy Inspector-General of Army Hospitals, writing in 1836, 

 says : " It is remarkable that the coconut tree has never been introduced 

 into the Andaman Islands, although it is very extensively cultivated in the 

 Nicobar Islands, which are within 30 leagues of the little Andamans." 

 Evidence, I believe, has been afforded within historic times of the coconut 

 taking root of itself after floating across the sea ; but a curious case of pre- 

 maturely jumping to a conclusion occurred in 1890 to a distinguished 

 botanist, who wrote to the London weekly, Nature : — 

 Self- Colonization of the Coconut Palm. 



The question whether the coconut palm is capable of establishing itself 

 on oceanic islands, or other shores for the matter of that, from seed cast 



