Coco de Mer (Lodoicea maldivica) is a giant of the plant world; This palm has the longest leaves and the largest and toughest seed of any plant in the world. The trunk is tall and can reach 34 meters in height. Note that the Latin name is not Cocos, because this tree is not too close to the palm tree we know, Cocos nucifera.
Coco de Mer leaves are fan-shaped, 7-10 m long and 4.5 m wide and 4 m long petiole. The plant is dioecious, the male plant is separated from the female plant. Long male flowers drooping up to 1 m in length. Perhaps the most famous feature of this palm tree is its enormous fruit; The mature fruit is about 40-50 cm in diameter weighing about 15-30 kg, and contains the largest seed in the plant kingdom. The fruit takes 6-7 years to mature and two more years to germinate.
The legend of Coco de Mer is a legend about the seeds and trees of Coco de Mer or coconut butt, a rare species of palm trees endemic to Praslin and Curieuse islands in the Seychelles archipelago, the Indian Ocean. Before Seychelles are discovered and inhabited, the seeds of this species are sometimes carried by the ocean currents to distant beaches, such as to the Maldives, where the buttocks are unknown. Moreover, this drifting seed will not germinate. Its size and shape are extraordinary and coupled with the discovery situation (where the tree is not yet known), making it bring up some legends.
The seeds of the Coco de Mer tree are enormous (the largest seed in the plant kingdom) and are oddly shaped, resembling the shape and size of a woman's undamaged buttocks on one side, and the belly and thigh on the other. Not surprisingly, this seed is viewed by people in other parts of the world as a rare and interesting object with mythological and even magical properties. The nature and origin of this extraordinary seed, when it was still mysterious and the breeding of the tree was not understood. A number of legends appear both about fruit and also about the trees that produce them.
male tree flowers. Credit image
Coco de Mer trees have separate male and female trees, unlike coconuts. And, unlike coconut, coco de mer fruit does not adapt to spread naturally by floating above sea water. When the coco de mer fruit falls into the sea, it can not float due to its heavy and heavy density; but directly sink to the bottom. However, once the fruit is on the seafloor for long periods of time, the skin is peeling off, its decaying internal part creating the gases that make the seeds return to the surface. At that time the seeds can float, but no longer fertile so that when the ocean currents sweep the seeds to a distant beach, for example in the Maldives, it will not grow trees there. The name Coco de Mer is French, meaning "sea coconut".
Legend Before Seychelles Discovery
Malay seafarers have seen coco de mers "falling up" from the seafloor, so they think that the rump's coconut tree grows underwater, in a forest at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. According to Antonio Pigafetta and Georg Eberhard Rumphius, Malays believe that the tree is also home to large birds or birdlike creatures, Garuda (or Rukh for Arabs). The African shaman believes that Garuda is capable of hunting elephants and tigers. The African shamans also believe that sometimes coco de mer trees rise above sea level, and when this happens, the waves created by the tree do not allow the ships that are around to go away and the helpless sailors become the food of Garuda.
The fruits found in the sea and on the beach no longer have skin, and are similar to the lower body of a woman, including the buttocks. This association is reflected in one of the ancient botanical names of plants, Lodoicea callipyge, where callipyge is from the Greek word meaning "beautiful butt". Historically this floating "beautiful ass" was collected and sold in Europe and Arabia.
In Maldives, any coco de mer fruit found in the sea or on the beach should be given to the king, and who keep it for themselves or sell it can be sentenced to death. However, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor was able to buy one of these pieces for 4,000 gold florins. Admiral Wolfert Hermanssen of the Netherlands also received coco de mer fruit as a reward for his services, from the Sultan of Banten in 1602, to fight the Portuguese and protect the capital of Banten. However, the top of the fruit given to the admiral is lost; apparently, the Sultan had ordered the top of the cut fruit, for decency. João de Barros believes that coco de mer has remarkable healing powers, even superior to "bezoar stones". In one of his books, Dr. Berthold Carl Seemann mentions that many people believe fruit to be an antidote to all toxins.
Legend After Seychelles Discovery
The new legend of coco de mer emerged after 1743 when the actual coco de mer tree was found. Fruit from Coco de Mer only on the female tree. The male tree has catkins like phallic. Due to this unusual erotic form, some people believe that the trees make love passionately on the night of the storm. According to legend, the male tree pulls itself, and approaches the female tree. And the legend also says that whoever sees the Coco de Mer tree mates, will die or be blind. The fact that even to the present pollination of coco de mer is not fully understood, is one of the factors behind this legend.
In the Victorian era, General Charles George Gordon, who visited Seychelles in 1881, believes that the Vallée de Mai on Praslin Island is the Garden of Eden described in the Bible, and that coco de mer is the forbidden fruit .... hehehe
Reference :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legends_of_the_coco_de_mer
http://www.valentine.gr/linkOfTheMonth-august2014.php
http://www.newtonsapple.org.uk/coco-de-mer-palm-tree/
http://www.palmpedia.net/wiki/Lodoicea_maldivica