Seychelles: Praslin – Coco de Mer Palm

Coco de Mer (Lodoicea maldivica) grows only on the Island of Praslin and nowhere else on earth. It’s leaves are humongous and soar upto 40 meters high. It’s nuts are the largest seeds in the plant world and are 5-10 times bigger than coconuts. But there’s more – the nuts very closely resemble certain parts of female body – which made this palm into legends. When sailors would find these nuts floating at sea they thought these are mermaids from the undersea gardens that they would then go in search of. The palm has separate female and male trees. Female trees bear the aforementioned female butt-like nuts, while the male trees produce meter-long phallic like flowers.

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