The coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) is so widely cultivated that the continued survival of a wild form of this palm has been doubted. It is possible to test a theory that describes what a wild-type coconut would look like because it also predicts where wild-type coconut palms might still be growing. On the basis of a 50-year-old translation of an unpublished manuscript written in 1668, a particular locality in the Philippines was visited and coconuts of the anticipated type were found. They have characteristics, particularly of their fruit, that make them unpopular with farmers, and they are in a natural situation where they would not have been planted on purpose. This finding has practical implications for coconut genetic resource conservation, and it may also provide insight on the extent of cadang-cadang disease in the Philippines. COCONUTS ARE AN IMPORTANT CROP IN THE PHILIPPINES, where 417 million palms occupy about one-quarter of the land that is cultivated for agriculture. Exports of copra and coconut oil currently account for over 80 percent of the Philippines' coconut production and about 70 percent of the world's trade in these commodities (Arboleda 1981). Yet, even before it became industrially important, the coconut played a significant part in trade among the Philippines, America, and Europe. From 1565 to 1815, the Manila galleons carried valuable Oriental silks and spices across the Pacific Ocean to Acapulco, for onward transport across the American isthmus and the Atlantic Ocean to Cadiz. Coconuts provided essential fibers for ropes and cables and for caulking the seams of the wooden-walled ships. Fresh, ripe coconuts were also taken on board at the beginning of each voyage to provide sweet, uncontaminated, and refreshing meat and drink throughout the crossing, which might last for six months or more (Eleazar 1981). The Spaniards had learned about these nautical uses of the coconut from the Portuguese (Harries 1978) 20 years before Magellan reached the Philippines. As early as 1642, Governor Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera decreed that village chiefs should plant 200 coconut trees (Eleazar 1981). By subsequent Spanish decrees in the 18th century, at the height of the galleon trade, all natives were obliged to plant some coconuts, areca palm, cacao, and pepper; rich natives were required to plant 200 feet of land in coconut and another 200 feet in abaca (Camus 1957). Abaca (Manila hemp), which was also used for ship rigging, was not successfully taken from the Philippines to grow in America until this century (Purseglove 1972), but any coconuts that germinated during the voyage or remained unconsumed simply got planted. It is therefore no coincidence that the common coconut on the Pacific coast of Central and South America, from Mexico to Peru, is similar to the San Ramon and Tagnanan forms of the Philippines common tall coconut. It has a large, thin-husked, spherical fruit with an obovate, thin-shelled nut inside that contains a large amount of liquid endosperm when immature. These features of the fruit, together with those of the palm's growth pattern, have resulted from domestic selection and are identified as the Niu vai type in contrast to the wild, or Niu kafa, type (Harries 1978). The fruit of the wild type is long, angular, and thick-husked, with small, egg-shaped nut. These and other growth characteristics arose by natural selection for factors affecting dissemination by floating (Harries 1981a). Geography and history have kept these two forms isolated from each other in Central and South America (Richardson et al. 1978), but in Asia and the Pacific coconuts grew long before European intervention and it has been assumed that the domestic coconut displaced the wild type. It is possible to examine this assumption in the Philippines and show it to be unfounded. One of the earliest accounts about coconuts in the Philippines and perhaps the first well-informed agricultural study-by Alzina in 1668-was based on 34 years I Received 17 January 1983; Revised 12 August 1983; accepted 22 September 1983. 2 Present address: National Plant Genetic Resources Laboratory, Institute of Plant Breeding, University of the Philippines at Los Banios, College, Laguna 3720, Philippines. 3Present address: Chief Agronomist/Plant Breeder, Dami Oil Palm Research Station, P.O. Box 165, Kimbe West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea. 140 BIOTROPICA 16(2): 140-147 1984 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.149 on Mon, 03 Oct 2016 06:02:32 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms