Dr. E. P. Wright on Lodoicea sechellarum. 341 
once accepted the invitation, and prepared to spend two or 
three weeks on Praslin. As we glided gently through the 
passage in the coral-reef that runs along the eastern coast of 
Praslin, the first object that met my view was a clump of the 
Lodoicea sechellarum; there were four or five trees, growing 
erect and to a height of about forty feet, from between a mass 
of granite boulders quite close to the sea-shore. 
Lo study the structure of this noble palm-tree, to fmd out 
all I could about its life-history, to ascertain the probable rate 
of growth of its stem, the duration of its flowering period, and 
to bring back with me to Europe young growing plants were 
some of the chief objects of my visit to this group of 
islands. 
For centuries the history of this palm had been involved in 
mystery; its strange-shaped nuts had been now and then 
found washed ashore on the Maldive Islands or floating about 
on the surface of the Indian Ocean ; but its native country, or 
what kind of tree it was that produced such nuts, was 
unknown. ‘Tradition said it was a production of the sea. 
Rumphius believed in tradition, and assures us that it is not 
the product of a terrestrial plant that had fallen into the sea, 
but a veritable marine fruit; and sailors who never heard of 
Rumphius told strange stories of the tree itself growing be- 
neath the salt water, with large bunches of the double cocoa- 
nuts hanging from its branches; but when they would dive 
to gather the nuts, the nuts and the tree and all would disap- 
pear. Of course, if this were true, there was little chance of 
the double cocoa-nuts becoming common ; and so the few that 
were found floating were sold for very enormous prices ; those 
that landed on the Maldive Islands were the property of the 
king, who had a very severe law of “ treasure trove,” by which 
it was enacted that the person finding these nuts and not 
bringing them to the king should be put to death. 
The discovery of the Seychelle Islands by Captain Lazare 
Picaults, of the ‘ Elisabeth,’ despatched on a voyage of discovery 
from the Isle of France by M. Mahé de Labourdonnais, set 
the question of the native country of the double cocoa-nut at 
rest, and determined the fact that they were the products of a 
gigantic palm-tree. Sonnerat, in his ‘ Voyage to New Guinea,’ 
gives a description of this tree, which he found on Praslin. 
Commerson described it in MS. under the name of Lodotcea ; 
and La Billardiére, in the ‘Annales du Muséum d’ Histoire 
Naturelle,’ gave a botanical description of it, accompanied by 
figures drawn from spirit specimens of the fruit, and a draw- 
ing of the tree from nature by M. Lilet. M. Quéau de Quincy 
appends to this paper some remarks on the economic value of 
