Editing Paschalococos disperta

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===Introduction: ===
''Paschalococos'' is an extinct palm from Easter Island which has given rise to
several theories about its origins, uses, and demise, particularly in respect to its
relationship with the Easter Islanders, and their incredible statues. One of the
popular theories is that the palm trunks were used as rollers for the statues,
to move them about the island. Another theory is given directly below, and this is followed
by the latest thinking courtesy of Dr John Dransfield. These pieces were
taken from several threads about ''Paschalococos'' on the

===I: ===
There is a theory that the fate of the people of Easter Island is tied up with
''Paschalococos''. The ancient inhabitants used the giant trunks to make
their sea going canoes. Fossils showed very large trunks on these palms,
when man first got to the island,
and food remains from this period were from larger animal species that were
from far offshore of the island. As the population increased and the people
cut the old growth palms for building and canoes, over several hundreds of years,
the palm growth could not keep up and so smaller and smaller palms were available
for canoes. The result was smaller canoes that could not travel to traditional
distant offshore fishing grounds. This forced fishing of local waters to the point
of depletion of food and to the destruction of all food sources and palms on
he island through overpopulation.

===II: ===
As I am the guilty party who described the genus ''Paschalococos'',
I should perhaps write something to clear up misconceptions.
The first indication that a palm once grew on Easter Island came from
studies of the totally dead pollen preserved in lake sediments on the island.
Among the pollen of many different plants were found large quantities of
palm pollen and these pollen grains disappear from the record at a time
approximately 500 years ago (Based on radio carbon dating).
Then dry empty palm nuts were found in a cave, and these nuts look rather
like empty ''Jubaea'' nuts. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that
the palm survived until 1900. Perhaps many people indeed now assume that
the extinct palm of Easter Island, ''Paschalococos disperta'',
is not distinct from ''[[Jubaea chilensis]]'', but, if that assumption is made,
then it is almost certainly based on an uncritical and unscientific interpretation
of the evidence. There seems to be a desire for the palm to be ''Jubaea'' so that
it can feature in theories of how the Easter Island statues were moved about.
The extinct palm of Easter Island is represented by "nuts" - hollow endocarps -
and casts of root bosses and pollen. There is absolutely no doubt that the palm
is a cocoid palm in that it has a hard endocarp and three eyes. The cocoid palms
include the Chilean wine palm, ''Butia'' and the coconut, and many others,
all possessing hard nuts with characteristic eyes. The Easter Island endocarps
are very similar to those of modern ''Jubaea chilensis'', but, nevertheless,
subtly different. The differences between the genera in this group of palms are
to be found in soft structures such as the endosperm (kernel) and male and female flowers,
features that are rarely preserved in the fossil state.

While there is no doubt that the extinct Easter Island palm is most similar to modern
''Jubaea'', there is no evidence that it really is a species of ''Jubaea'', let alone
''[[Jubaea chilensis]]'', or even that it had big trunks that could be used as
rollers for transporting the famed Easter Island statues. ''Jubaeopsis caffra''
and Butia have endocarps very similar to those of ''Jubaea'', yet their trunks are
totally different. In coining the name ''Paschalococos disperta'' for
the extinct palm I was at great pains to highlight the fact that we have no
incontrovertible evidence that the palm was ''Jubaea'', because the very features
used for diagnosing the genus are at present missing. All we can say with certainty
is that a cocoid palm occurred on Easter Island there is no evidence for what it
looked like.

There would have been no problem in assigning it to a genus if we lived in
the mid 1800s when all these different palms were regarded as species of ''Cocos''.
Once genera such as ''Butia'' and ''Jubaea'' are split off from ''Cocos'',
it becomes necessary
to look at feature other than just the endocarp to say where a palm belongs.
It is in my opinion impossible to assign the Easter Island palm to any known modern genus,
because the crucial diagnostic material has not been preserved, and hence the need to
describe it under a new name. Had I identified the palm as ''Jubaea chilensis'',
then the archaeologists could with justification have said that the trunks may have
been used as rollers.

However, to reiterate, there is absolutely no evidence that trunks of the
extinct palm were suitable and could have been used in that way. While the idea of
planting ''[[Jubaea chilensis]]'' on Easter Island is a nice one from an aesthetic point
of view, it will only entrench the uncritical view that ''Jubaea'' once grew there,
for which there is as yet no unequivocal evidence.

Some archaeologists have suggested that the Easter Island palm met its end as
islanders cut down the trunks for use as rollers to transport statues.
I suggest that a much more likely theory for the extinctioon of the palm is
that the trunks were felled for the edible palm heart - throughout the tropics,
palms are felled for this purpose and in some places, such as Madagascar,
this represents one of the most severe threats to the survival of many species.
An island community in the process of exhausting its resources would have
few compunctions about felling trees to eat the hearts.
(The following is a reply to some speculations about resurecting ''Paschalococos''
via DNA from pollen or old nuts.)

===II: ===
A note about DNA in ''Paschalococos'' - the pollen remains consist of the almost
indestructible sporopollinin pollen cell walls, but no contents where DNA would be,
and the nuts consist of hard woody dead cells virtually devoid of cell contents -
and hence no DNA either. The best way forward is anatomical studies of the nut cells
and comparison with those of ''Jubaea'' and related palms. This work is currently being
conducted by a student at Missouri Botanical Garden and it may be possible then to
ome up with a clearer idea of which extant palms are the closest relatives of
''Paschalococos''.


===External Links:===
<p>[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Paschalococos%22&amp;num=10&amp;sa=Google+Search Google],
[https://images.google.com/images?q=%22Paschalococos%22&amp;hl=en&amp;btnG=Google+Search GoogleImages],
[https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Paschalococos Flickr],
[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Paschalococos%22%20site:https://www.palmtalk.org/&amp;sa=Google+Search PalmTalk]
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[[Category:Paschalococos|disperta]]
[[Category:Palm|Paschalococos_disperta]]