Page:The coco palm by Dahlgren, B. E. (Bror Eric).djvu/9



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The coco palm grows along tropical shores throughout the world. Its origin has at times been ascribed to the western hemisphere where it is found in places on the west coast of Central and South America, but it is more likely that it belongs originally rather to the East Indian Archipelago and Oceania. Its cultivation in any case probably originated in southeastern Asia where many varieties of it exist and where its uses are more thoroughly appreciated than in the American tropics.

The fruits of the coco palm float and are readily transported by the sea. They will germinate even after a lengthy immersion in salt water, which helps to account for its wide distribution. On the smaller Oceanic Islands it constitutes the most important part of the vegetation and together with a few wild strand plants, perhaps the most constant and characteristic. It is however seldom encountered except in a state of cultivation. As an escape it may be one of the first of waterborn plants to arrive on newly elevated land or reef. On a volcanic island in Polynesia, visited four years after its appearance by the British man-of-war Egeria, the vegetation was thus found to consist of two young coconut palms and three other plants. Preferring the loose soil of sandy beaches it is mostly confined to them though in places it is grown away from the shore and even at a not inconsiderable altitude. In the Philippines it is said to have been planted