ABSTRACT
In 1975 Dennis E. Puleston arranged for pollen analysis of a sediment core from Laguna de Cocos, Albion Island, to investigate the vegetation, climate, and agricultural history of northern Belize. Puleston and Philip Leino collected many plants from cultivated flood plain habitats, wetland fields, and dwelling lots in the Rio Hondo area. Major components of the Cocos pollen diagram were the Combretaceae and Melastomataceae pollen types. The measurements used in the reference pollen study of Melastomataceae and Combretaceae were applied to two fossil samples from Cocos. H. H. Vaughan indentified all Melastomataceae/Combretaceae-type pollen larger than 22 microns as Terminalia, and those smaller than 22 microns as Melastomataceae. Sediment stratigraphy is little altered although pollen concentrations and mollusc shell numbers increase slightly. Pollen percentages in the Laguna de Cocos diagram are based on total pollen counted except semi-aquatics, aquatics, ferns, unknowns, and indeterminables.
