NATURALIST'S 



NOTEBOOK 



TOP: Hamburger sea beans and pod 

 BOTTOM: Hamburger sea beans 



Carolina shores. The book, World Guide to 

 Tropical Drift Seeds and Fruits, says 22 varieties 

 have been counted in the Carolinas. 



But because most sea beans are brown and 

 small and wash in with seaweed and other 

 flotsam, they are easily overlooked. And many 

 people, like White, publicity coordinator for the 

 North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, 

 don't know what they've found when they 

 encounter their first sea bean. A sea heart she 

 discovered at Cape Lookout about 10 years ago 

 piqued her curiosity. She was fascinated when 

 she learned what it was. 



"The mystery is what's intriguing," she says. 

 'And how far they travel." 



A WORLD VIEW 



Sea beans come our way from the Carib- 

 bean, South America, Central America and the 

 southernmost Florida Keys thanks largely to the 

 Gulf Stream, the north-flowing river within the 

 Atlantic off the East Coast. The beans turn up as 

 far north as Cape Cod, though they become 

 increasingly rare north of Cape Hatteras. 

 Southeastern Florida beaches, on the other hand, 

 are a collector's paradise, given the proximity to 

 the sources. 



TOP: Mary's sea beans 

 BOTTOM: Mary's sea beans 



Some sea beans are trans- Atlantic voyagers, 

 reaching the United Kingdom, Norway, 

 Greenland and Iceland. In the days before ocean 

 currents were understood, sea beans gave rise to 

 much lore and legend, as well as practical or 

 medicinal uses. 



The sea heart is said to have a hand in world 

 history, inspiring Columbus to search for the 

 lands to the west whence they came. The sea 

 heart is still called the Columbus Bean in the 

 Azores, some 800 miles off the coast of Portugal. 



The Irish put sea beans under pillows to 

 keep the mischievous "little people" away. On 

 Scotland's Hebrides islands, sea pearls, also 

 called nickernuts, were worn to ward off evil. 

 Mary's bean held special meaning for the devout, 

 and the expectant. Hebridean mothers in labor 

 clutched a Mary's bean in hopes of an easy 

 delivery and a healthy infant. 



In old England, sea hearts were good 

 luck charms for seafarers because they had 

 weathered a long ocean journey. Babies teethed 

 on the flint-hard coating of the seed, about the 

 size of a silver dollar. Early Norwegians brewed 

 a tea from the sea heart husk for women giving 

 birth, and made medicine for cattle from the 

 bean's insides. Some folks halved sea hearts, 



TOP: Nickernut pod and sea beans 

 BOTTOM: Nickernut sea beans 



hinged the joint and made them into snuffboxes. 



In modem times, some collectors polish sea 

 beans for jewelry. Others puncture the outer 

 coating and cultivate the seeds into indoor plants. 

 Most, though, simply keep them as reminders of 

 the ocean's wonder and the lands that beckon 

 beyond the horizon. 



ANY DAY CAN BE BEAN SEASON 



Unlike seashells, sea beans are not an 

 everyday find on North Carolina strands. A 

 dedicated beachcomber might pocket only a 

 few per year, making them all the more special, 

 some say. 



"I think that's the wonderful thing about sea 

 beans," says Capt. Ron White of Morehead City, 

 who conducts ecological sailing charters to Cape 

 Lookout National Seashore. A marine biologist, 

 he also has sailed Caribbean and Florida waters, 

 and gathered dozens of sea beans since his father 

 gave him a lucky bean — a sea heart — from 

 Cuba as a child. 



When a strong southwest wind sends ashore 

 the sargassum often floating in the Gulf Stream, 

 White says, he looks for sea beans. The variety 

 he finds most often is the sea coconut — a dark, 

 round, lightweight palm seed, also called a golf 



24 HIGH SEASON 2003 



