355. COCOS NUCIFERA Arecaceae John Drans®eld and David Cooke Summary. A brief account of the relationships, origin, uses and cultiva- tion of the coconut, Cocos nucifera L. (Arecaceae) are provided together with a detailed description and illustration. The coconut is the archetypal palm tree. Epitomising the tropics, it occurs throughout the more humid tropical parts of the world, where it represents one of the most important of all crops for the sustaining of human life. It is thus not surprising that the literature concerning the coconut is vast, ranging from detailed accounts of its agronomy, its pests and diseases, its origin and its uses and folklore; there are even learned treatises on coconut pearls. How is the coconut related to other palms? Currently there is only one species recognized in the genus Cocos, C. nucifera, the coconut (Uhl and Drans®eld, 1987), but this has not always been the case. Last century many of the palms that bear fruits in which the hard shells have three eyes were ascribed to Cocos, and even some palms lacking this characteristic. This hard shell or endocarp with three or more distinct pores is the character that unites the palms that are included in the tribe Cocoeae of the subfamily Arecoideae. Although the arrangement of the palm subfamilies and their composition is currently being reassessed using new sources of data from dna , all evidence so far accumulated con®rms that the cocoid palms represent a natural grouping. Largely con®ned to South America there are nevertheless a few members of the tribe found scattered throughout the southern hemisphere with two genera in Africa, two in Madagascar, and a recently extinct palm (Paschalococos disperta) in Easter Island (Drans®eld, 1991) and with indubitable fossils in India and New Zealand. The concentration of cocoid palms in the New World lead botanists to suggest that the coconut itself was South American in origin. Impressed by the great diversity of coconut forms in the Old World, particularly in the lands bordering the Indian Ocean and the western Paci®c, and the great variety of names associated with the coconut in these lands, other botanists disputed the south American origin, suggesting instead that the coconut originated in the Far East. It was not until the careful work of Harries (1978) that the evidence in favour of a # Bentham-Moxon Trust 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 2