For plant biology, the search for the place of origin of the coconut palm is an epic tale. The greatest botanists of the XVIII-IX centuries:

– K. VON LINNÉ (1707-1778)

– K. L. WILLDENOW (1765-1812)

– C. E. PERSOON (1761-1836)

– H. F. LINK (1767-1850)

did not look into the question of the origin place of the coconut palm, limiting themselves to indicating geographical distribution.

1) P. MILLER (1752):

“Maldives and the desert islands of Southeast Asia”.

2) R. BROWN (1818):

“Equatorial islands and beaches of Asia”.

3) K. F. P. VON MARTIUS (1848):

“Pacific coasts of the Panama isthmus (Central America)”.

Martius was the first 19^th century botanist to actually look into the question of the native land of the coconut palm. His hypothesis was formulated on a phylogenetic basis, in relation to the provenance of other species of which the Cocos genus was made up. However, this hypothesis has no scientific value as Martius did not know the flowers of C. nucifera, designing instead those of another species of palm.

4) A. R. WALLACE (1853):

“Coral islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans”.

Wallace pointed out that the coconut palm was introduced to and cultivated in South America by the Portuguese who settled there; however it was still unknown to the Indians of the interior.

5) B. SEEMANN (1873):

“In general the isthmus of Panama or neighbouring regions are considered to be the birthplace of this singular production, and that from there it floated off to Polynesia and Asia”.

Dealing with the flora of the Fiji islands (Pacific Ocean) Seemann reported that the Polynesians did not know of art of preparing “toddy”. This very ancient custom of the peoples of Southeast Asia is certainly as old as the most ancient Asiatic languages which all have a special term for this type of liquor and “toddy” is a corruption of the Sanskrit word “tade”. This fact would prove that the coconut palm is not a native of the Pacific. PIGAFETTA, who was one of the first Europeans to set foot on these islands, noted this ethnological phenomenon.

6) ALPH. DE CANDOLLE (1883):

“Indian archipelago, from where it diffused to the east and to the west”.

7) O. BECCARI (1910; 1916):

“The coconut palm, native of lands or islands once connected to the Austro-American continent, now lost, dispersed naturally in the islands of the Pacific”.

Beccari believed that the coconut palm, growing on islands in the process of submerging, let their fruits fall into the waves and, transported by currents, had to reach land so that they could install themselves on beaches made in a way which facilitated the fruit’s landing there, and which were in the process of rising and free of animals which could destroy the young plants. Beccari proposed that the presence of the plant in Malaya and India was due to Indians: “And especially to Tamils and perhaps other Indo-chinese peoples who during their adventurous voyages pushing beyond New Guinea to Polynesia, found this precious plant, and introduced it to the islands and continent of India”.

8) O. F. COOK (1901):

“The American continent”.

Cook accused all that was known on the dispersal of the coconut as “Botanical romance”, denyng the possibility of its floating, and affirming that it was primitive man who diffused it. He says: “The declared theory that the ocean currents disseminated it is uncalled-for and unlikely”.

9) H. B. GUPPY (1906):

“Diffused by the equatorial currents from the New World to Asia”.

10) E. CHIOVENDA (1921; 1923):

“Ancient lands today submerged below the Western Indian Ocean. It was in the Maldives or in other neighbouring islands, lost today, that the movement of diffusion by man began towards the East. Its transportation to the oceanic coral islands occurred due to the fruits floating there”.

11) A. F. W. SCHIMPER (1929):

“Native of the Malay archipelago, from where it began to diffuse in the Indian Ocean and along all the tropical coasts of the Pacific Ocean”.

According to this author, not only the coconut but the entire coastal flora of the Malay archipelago and of its neighbouring islands is made up of plants which produce fruits or seeds capable of floating for prolonged periods which diffused from there to other areas.

12) N. J. VAVILOV (1951):

“There are two main genetic centres of origin of the coconut palm: India and Indo-Malaya (Indo-china and the Malay archipelago)”.

13) R. CHILD (1974):

“The coconut palm probably originated on the New Guinea-Fiji area but has long been distributed through South-East Asia to the Tropical African coasts. Its possible presence in the New World before the arrival of Columbus is as yet unproved; it probably reached the Pacific coast of Central America before discovery, but did not reach the Caribbean coast (from West Africa) until after the discovery”.

14) J. A. DUKE (1983):

“Now pantropical, especially along tropical shorelines, where floating coconuts may volunteer, the coconut’s origin is shrowded in mysteries, vigorously debated. According to PURSEGLOVE (1968-1972), the center of origin of cocoid palms most closely related to coconut is in north-western South America. At the time of the discovery of the New Word, coconuts (as we know them today) were confined to limited areas of the Pacific coast of Central America, and absent from the Atlantic shores of the Americas and Africa. Coconuts drifted as far north as Norway are still capable of germination. The wide distribution of coconut has no doubt been aided by man and marine currents as well”.