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Peradeniya is famous for the Royal Botanical Gardens of Peradeniya, which is considered to be one of the most beautiful botanical gardens in Asia. It is situated in a slope of the Mahaweli river and attracts many visitors from Sri Lanka as well as from abroad.Another key attribute of this city is the University of Peradeniya which is the second oldest University in Sri Lanka. Its buildings are of mixed colonial and Indian style amongst the lush vegetation of the Sri Lankan hill country. The Department of Agriculture is also located here.

Cannonball tree flower

Royal Botanical Garden, is renowned for its collection of a variety of orchids. It includes more than 4000 species of plants, including of orchids, spices, medicinal plants and palm trees. The total area of the botanical garden is 147 acres (0.59 km2), at 460 meters above sea level, and with a 200-day annual rainfall.

Royal Palm Avenue

There are over 200 species of palms in the Kandy Botanical Gardens. The majestic Royal Palm Avenue in Peradeniya Royal Botanical Garden was planted in 1950

An area on the garden map called ‘Double Coconut’. The double coconut palms produce the largest seeds in the plant kingdom. If you did not realise it, that is what a coconut is, a giant seed. They take 6-7 years to mature.

The Coco de Mer (Lodoicea maldivica), the sole member of the genus Lodoicea, is a palm endemic to the islands of Praslin and Curieuse in the Seychelles. It formerly also was found on the small islets of St Pierre, Chauve-Souris and Ile Ronde (Round Island), all located near Praslin, but has become extinct there. The name of the genus, Lodoicea, is derived from Lodoicus, the Latinised form of Louis, in honour of King Louis XV of France.

The tree grows to 25–34 m tall. The leaves are fan-shaped, 7–10 m long and 4.5 m wide with a 4 m petiole. It is dioecious, with separate male and female plants. The male flowers are catkin-like, up to 1 m long.

The Coco de Mer is the most interesting species of the six monospecific endemic palms in Seychelles since it is the "only true case of island gigantism among Seychelles flowering plants, a unique feature of Seychelles vegetation" (Proctor, 1984). It is one of the most universally well-known plants and holds three botanical records; the largest fruit so far recorded weighed 42 kg; the mature seeds weighing up to 17.6 kg are the world's heaviest; and the female flowers are the largest of any palm.Of the six endemic palms it is the only dioecious species, with male and female flowers located on different plants.

The clusters of staminate flowers are arranged spirally and are flanked by very tough leathery bracts. Each has a small bracteole, three sepals forming a cylindrical tube, and a three-lobed corolla. There are 17 to 22 stamens. The pistillate flowers are solitary and borne at the angles of the rachis and are partially sunken in it in the form of a cup. They are ovoid with three petals as well as three sepals. It has been suggested that they may be pollinated by animals such as the endemic lizards which inhabit the forest where they occur. Pollination by wind and rain are also thought to be important. Only when Lodoicea begins to produce flowers, which can vary from 11 years to 45 or more, is it possible to determine the sex of the plant.

The fruit is bilobed, flattened, 40 to 50 cm long ovoid and pointed, and contains usually one but occasionally two to four seeds. The epicarp is smooth and the mesocarp is fibrous. The Seychelles nut was once believed to be a sea-bean or drift seed, a seed evolved to be dispersed by the sea. However, it is now known that the viable nut is too dense to float, and only rotted out nuts can be found on the sea surface, thus explaining why the trees are limited in range to just two islands.

The mature fruit is 40–50 cm in diameter and weighs 15–30 kg, and contains the largest seed in the plant kingdom. The fruit, which requires 6–7 years to mature and a further two years to germinate, is sometimes also referred to as the Sea Coconut, Love Nut, double coconut, coco fesse, or Seychelles Nut.

The species is grown as an ornamental tree in many areas in the tropics, and subsidiary populations have been established on Mahé and Silhouette Islands in the Seychelles to help conserve the species.

Formerly the Coco de Mer was known as Maldive Coconut. Its scientific name, Lodoicea maldivica, originated before the 18th century when the Seychelles were uninhabited. In centuries past the coconuts that fell from the trees and ended up in the sea would be carried away eastwards by the prevailing sea currents.

The nuts can only float after the germination process, when they are hollow. In this way many drifted to the Maldives where they were gathered from the beaches and valued as an important trade and medicinal item. This association is reflected in one of the plant's archaic botanical names, Lodoicea callipyge Comm. ex J. St.-Hil., in which callipyge is from Greek words meaning 'beautiful buttocks'. Other botanical names used in the past include Lodoicea sechellarum Labill. and Lodoicea sonneratii (Giseke) Baill.Until the true source of the nut was discovered in 1768 by Dufresne, it was believed by many to grow on a mythical tree at the bottom of the sea. European nobles in the sixteenth century would often have the shells of these nuts polished and decorated with valuable jewels as collectibles for their private galleries. The Coco de Mer tree is now a rare and protected species.

The fruit is used in Ayurvedic medicine and also in traditional Chinese medicine. In food, it is typically found as flavor enhancers for soups in southern Chinese cuisine, namely cuisine around the Canton region.

The seeds of the coco-de-mer have been highly prized over the centuries; their rarity caused great interest and high prices in royal courts, and the tough outer seed coat has been used to make bowls [such as for Sufi/Dervish beggar-alms kashkul bowls] and other instruments. The history of exploitation continues today, and the collection of nuts has virtually stopped all natural regeneration of populations with the exception of the introduced population on Silhouette. This palm has been lost from the wild from three Seychelles islands within its former range. Habitat loss is one of the major threats to the survival of remaining populations, there have been numerous fires on the islands of Praslin and Curieuse, and only immature trees remain over large parts of these islands.The Seychelles is a World Heritage Site, and a third of the area is now protected

A kashkul (begging bowl) Agha Khan Museum

Carved Coco de Mer

Carved Coco de Mer

A Qajar coco-de-mer kashkul, Iran. 19th century

Kashkul (Beggar's Bowl)

From the Metropolitan

Museum of Art

Kashkul (Beggar's Bowl)

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kashkul (Beggar's Bowl)

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kashkul (Beggar's Bowl)

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art

A kashkul (begging bowl) used by a Dervish, a Sufic ascetic. Victoria & Albert Museum London

Passport Visa

An exquisite kashkul (begging bowl) used by a Dervish, a Sufic ascetic

Legend also has it that Praslin Island is the legendary Garden of Eden, and the famous Coco de Mer palm was actually the fruit of knowledge of good and evil that led to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Perhaps this myth is born from the erotic shape of the fruit: it's a double nut with an uncanny likeness to the female genitalia. The catkin is the male flower of the fruit, and it looks equally like a giant male phallus.

In another similarly homosapien similarity, the Coco de Mer tree takes between 20 and 30 years to bear fruit, and a further seven years to fully mature, however, men may blush to be outdone by a plant as the female fruits grow up to 10 inches and males up to 12 inches in length. The tree can live for between 200 and 400 years.

How to buy a Coco de MerEach fruit is sawn into two parts, emptied of the dried milk, and glue back together. It is then it cleaned - some are polished, some are completely shaved, others are just left with what looks like pubic hair! You cannot eat the fruit - it's purely used for decorative purposes. Each coco de mer is allocated a certificate with a number, details of it provenance which is a green label glued onto it, but only licensed sellers can have them in their shops. You can buy a coco de mer for the mighty sum of 200 Euros ($250) in some of the upmarket tourist shops in Mahé, La Digue, and Praslin.

Text : InternetPictures: Internet Sanda Foişoreanu Nicoleta LeuCopyright: All the images belong to their authors

Presentation: Sanda Foişoreanuwww.slideshare.net/michaelasanda

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