With the bright sun of the tropics, which floods the May Valley of the Seychelles with its rays, this place is always twilight. In this place one gets the impression that he has fallen into some kind of fabulous and mysterious world. The impression from what he saw grows, pleasant aromas of cinnamon, vanilla are felt, and the sounds of the wind and the crackling of leaves complete the fabulous picture. In this place grows the world's largest walnut. Huge coconut palms form continuous tunnels, and their branches bend under the weight of fruits to the ground. It is none other than sea coconut, which is also called coco de mer, love nut or seychelles nut. These are all names for the same fruit.
Description of the plant
The Seychelles palm differs from other species in its slow growth. In height, an adult plant reaches 30 meters. The palm tree grows on only two islands of the Seychelles archipelago, but this species is very famous for producing the largest nuts in the world. Their dimensions are giganticgirth more than a meter, and weight - over 40 kilograms. The fruits are used in cooking, and the shell is used in the household.
Seychelles palms are surprisingly slow growing. They gain their first ten meters by the age of two hundred. And the world's largest nut on a young tree appears only in the twenty-fifth year of the plant's life.
Palm botanists
All scientists unanimously say that the Seychelles palms give birth to giant seeds. This unusual phenomenon can be observed in sequoia, African baobab, Lebanese cedar. However, botanists cannot understand why the plant develops so slowly. The first sprouts appear only a year after sowing in the ground. During its life, which lasts about 810 years, the tree reaches 32 meters in height. And the world's largest nut is removed from it only at the age of 24.
Unlike other varieties of palm trees, this species has heterosexual trees. After the female flower is pollinated, the world's largest nut develops. Its formation takes a long time. It matures only in the tenth year. Fresh nuts are heavy. In water, they sink and lose their ability to germinate. Because of this feature, they cannot be carried by sea waters to other shores, like the nuts of other types of palm trees.
A bit of history
Even in the Middle Ages, people knew what was the biggest nut in the world. In those days, fairy tales were told in the Indo-Arabian-African regions that there was an island wherehuge immense nuts.
People did not immediately understand what kind of fruits they are talking about and what kind of trees bring them. The oceans brought dead fruits to the shores of India, Java, the Maldives, Sumatra. But no one knew where they came from and what trees they grow on. And then they began to say that these are the fruits of sea palms, swallowed up by the waters. Hence the name "sea nut".
In those distant times, coco de mer cost a lot of money. For each fruit they gave as much money as was placed in its shell. This price of the product was due to the fact that all doctors and healers of those times unanimously claimed that the fetus has unique medicinal abilities - it increases the sexuality of men, helps against poisons, epilepsy, paralysis, colic, nervous diseases.
Conclusion
The world's largest nut shown in the photo proves that the Earth's flora is amazing. According to scientists, these palm trees originated in the time of dinosaurs - about 66 million years ago. Palm seeds were carried across the ground by giant lizards. When the split of Gondwana occurred, this method of reproduction stopped working. In the modern world, Seychellois palms are forced to grow in the shade of their giant parents. Plants are well understood, except for one thing: scientists cannot understand how pollination occurs.
