coconut-palm

Updated: May 10, 2025

Concluding we may state that according to the whole evidence as it has been discussed by De Candolle and especially by Cook, the coconut-palm is of American origin and has been distributed as a cultivated tree by man through the whole of its wide range. This must have happened in a prehistoric era, thus affording time enough for the subsequent development of the fifty and more known varieties.

Hugo de Vries - Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation

Even when attacking a hostile village it is strictly forbidden, though one may loot houses, kill pigs, out down betel-nut palms, and even kill the inhabitants. But the coconut-palm is sacred in their eyes.

H. Wilfrid Walker - Wanderings among South Sea Savages and in Borneo and the Philippines

In short, the coconut-palm comes under the general rule, that botanical species are built up of a number of sharply distinguishable types, which prove their constancy and relative independence by their wide distribution in culture. In systematic works all these forms are called varieties, and a closer investigation of their real systematic value has not yet been made.

Hugo de Vries - Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation

Seated against the bole of a many-buttressed vi-tree was a native woman, whose right arm, shattered by a bullet and bound up in the spathe of a coconut-palm, was suspended from her neck by a strip of soft bark. She looked at him inquiringly. "A boat has come ashore," he said in the native tongue, "but none of the white men are seeking for my money." "Thy money!"

Louis Becke - Martin Of Nitendi; and The River Of Dreams : 1901

The climate seems to be specially suited to fruit, the pineapple and pomelo reaching their highest perfection here. The coconut-palm thrives on the island. The elephant, rhinoceros, tapir, wild cattle, and many other kinds of smaller animals of Asia are found in Borneo.

Carl Lumholtz - Through Central Borneo; an Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters Between the Years 1913 and 1917

A few poles cut up there among the hills and brought down to the shore, a sufficient quantity of wattles to form the roof and sides, and a covering of coconut-palm leaves, and there you are. We saw plenty of such structures among the islands that we visited before arriving here, and I remember that everybody remarked how easily they might be built."

Harry Collingwood - Overdue: The Story of a Missing Ship