COCO DE MER, LODOICEA MALDIVICA

The coco de mer (Lodoicea maldivica) is a palm found only in the islands of Praslin and Curieuse in the Seychelles. The fruit, which requires six to seven years to mature (and a further two years to germinate), is sometimes called the "Sea Coconut", "Double Coconut", "Coco Fesse" or "Seychelles Nut". This nut was believed to have been a sea-bean or drift seed- a seed designed to be dispersed by the sea. However, it is now known that the nut is too heavy to float, and that only rotten nuts can be found on the sea surface: this explains why the trees are limited in range to just two islands. The sailors who first saw the nut floating in the sea imagined that they resembled a woman's buttocks. This fanciful association is reflected in the plant's archaic botanical name, "Lodoicea callipyge"; "callipyge" meaning "beautiful rump" in Greek.