xn, c, 1 Beccari: Origin and Dispersal of Cocos Nucifera 37 
has to dispute the soil with other plants, or finds foes which 
injure its fruits when fallen to the ground or its young sprouting 
plants, or cause the death of the adult trees. But large groves 
of the coconut palm exist in a most flourishing condition in 
places where man most certainly does not contribute to their 
maintenance, and where they now produce themselves naturally, 
even supposing it were the case that the first fruits were 
deposited by man. 
The Palmyra Islands are just such a case; there, as Darwin 
observed of the Keeling group, “the young and fully grown 
coconut trees grew intermingled with the adult plants.” 
It would appear that the same is the case on other coral is- 
lands of the Pacific; for examples, Palmerston Island and prob- 
ably also Cocos Islands, formerly — that is, before they had been 
inhabited by Europeans. Cocos nucifera in these localities may 
be regarded as really wild and as a true representative of a 
strand flora; but admitting that the coconut palm, to establish 
itself on an oceanic island, has required, as a rule, the hand of 
man to carry its fruits thither, the case of the Palmyra Islands 
demonstrates that it is absolutely contrary to the truth to assert 
that the coconut palm can never flourish and reproduce itself 
spontaneously without the protection and help of man. 
I cannot credit that even if the Polynesians did carry the co- 
conut to the Palmyra Islands, they ever returned thither to take 
care of the plants. Yet the coconuts of the Palmyras are among 
the largest and finest known, and their albumen is more developed 
than that of most varieties cultivated by man. On oceanic is- 
lands, and especially on atolls, the coconut palm can establish 
itself; because when once the waves have deposited the fruits 
the young plants do not have to fear any competition with the 
primitive forest for the soil, and also because their competitors 
can at worst be only a few halophilous plants, produced from 
seeds brought thither at the same time as themselves, which can 
not oppose any great resistance to the growth of the coconut 
palm. Moreover, a most essential matter, no destructive ma- 
rauders can have existed in such islands; while, on account of 
their great isolation, not even the foes of the coconut tree that 
are most to be dreaded — the red and the black bettles — have been 
able to reach them. Still arguing to sustain his theory, Cook 
writes (II, p. 303) : “Unless the human friends of the young 
coconut are at hand to keep down the other vegetation the period 
of infancy is not survived.” But it must be observed that the 
special conditions, required for the coconut palm to develop and 
reproduce itself indepedently of man, are just those found either 
