Origin of Cultivated Plants / The International Scientific Series Volume XLVIII

by Alphonse de Candolle

Cocoa-nut Palm—Cocos nucifera, Linnæus.

The cocoa-nut palm is perhaps, of all tropical trees, the one which yields the greatest variety of products. Its wood and fibres are utilized in various ways. The sap extracted from the inner part of the inflorescence yields a much-prized alcoholic drink. The shell of the nut forms a vessel, the milk of the half-ripe fruit is a pleasant drink, and the nut itself contains a great deal of oil. It is not surprising that so valuable a tree has been a good deal planted and transported. Besides, its dispersion is aided by natural causes. The woody shell and fibrous envelope of the nut enable it to float in salt water without injury to the germ. Hence the possibility of its transportation to great distances by currents and its naturalization on coasts where the temperature is favourable. Unfortunately, this tree requires a warm, damp climate, such as exists only in the tropics, or in exceptional localities just without them. Nor does it thrive at a distance from the sea.

The cocoa-nut abounds on the littoral of the warm regions of Asia, of the islands to the south of this continent, and in analogous regions of Africa and America; but it may be asserted that it dates in Brazil, the West Indies, and the west coast of Africa from an introduction which took place about three centuries ago. Piso and Marcgraf[2154] seem to admit that the species is foreign to Brazil without saying so positively. De Martius,[2155] who has published a very important work on the Palmaceæ, and has travelled through the provinces of Bahia, Pernambuco, and others, where the cocoa-nut abounds, does not say that it is wild. It was introduced into Guiana by missionaries.[2156] Sloane[2157] says it is an exotic in the West Indies. An old author of the sixteenth century, Martyr, whom he quotes, speaks of its introduction. This probably took place a few years after the discovery of America, for Joseph Acosta[2158] saw the cocoa-nut palm at Porto Rico in the sixteenth century. De Martius says that the Portuguese introduced it on the coast of Guinea. Many travellers do not even mention it in this region, where it is apparently of no great importance. More common in Madagascar and on the east coast, it is not, however, named in several works on the plants of Zanzibar, the Seychelles, Mauritius, etc., perhaps because it is considered as cultivated in these parts.

Evidently the species is not of African origin, nor of the eastern part of tropical America. Eliminating these countries, there remain western tropical America, the islands of the Pacific, the Indian Archipelago, and the south of Asia, where the tree abounds with every appearance of being more or less wild and long established.

The navigators Dampier and Vancouver[2159] found it at the beginning of the seventeenth century, forming woods in the islands near Panama, not on the mainland, and in the isle of Cocos, situated at three hundred miles from the continent in the Pacific. At that time these islands were uninhabited. Later the cocoa-nut palm was found on the western coast from Mexico to Peru, but usually authors do not say that it was wild, excepting Seemann,[2160] however, who saw this palm both wild and cultivated on the Isthmus of Panama. According to Hernandez,[2161] in the sixteenth century the Mexicans called it coyolli, a word which does not seem to be native.

Oviedo,[2162] 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 cultivated. 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 travellers. Some take their name from the tree, among others two islands close to the Andamans and one near Sumatra.

The cocoa-nut occurring with every appearance of an ancient wild condition at once in Asia and western America, the question of origin is obscure. Excellent authors have solved it differently. De Martius believes it to have been transported by currents from the islands situated to the west of Central America, into those of the Asiatic Archipelago. I formerly inclined to the same hypothesis,[2163] since admitted without question by Grisebach;[2164] but the botanists of the seventeenth century often regarded the species as Asiatic, and Seemann,[2165] after a careful examination, says he cannot come to a decision. I will give the reasons for and against each hypothesis.

In favour of an American origin, it may be said—

1. The eleven other species of the genus Cocos are American, and all those which de Martius knew well are Brazilian.[2166] Drude,[2167] who has studied the Palmaceæ, has written a paper to show that each genus of this family is proper to the ancient or to the new world, excepting the genus Elæis, and even here he suspects a transport of the E. guineensis from America into Africa, which is not at all probable. (See above, p. 429.) The force of this argument is somewhat diminished by the circumstance that Cocos nucifera is a tree which grows on the littoral and in damp places, while the other species live under different conditions, frequently far from the sea and from rivers. Maritime plants, and those which grow in marshes or damp places, have commonly a more vast habitation than others of the same genus.

2. The trade winds of the Pacific, to the south and yet more to the north of the equator, drive floating bodies from America to Asia, a direction contrary to that of the general currents.[2168] It is known, moreover, from the unexpected arrival of bottles containing papers on different coasts, that chance has much to do with these transports.