Vallee de Mai Nature Reserve

The Vallee de Mai Nature Reserve, on Praslin Island in the Seychelles, protects a well-preserved palm forest of some 19.5 hectares that shelters the endemic coco de mer palm along with five other endemic palm species. The coco de mer produces the largest seed of any plant in the world, with its double-lobed nut weighing up to 42 kilograms, and the reserve's four to five thousand palm trees represent six species found nowhere else on Earth. The forest also shelters the rare Seychelles black parrot, along with chameleons, geckos, skinks, caecilians, tree frogs and endemic freshwater fish, and it survives as a relict of vegetation once shared across the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, from before the Seychelles separated from Madagascar and India. Left largely undisturbed until the 1930s, it was designated a nature reserve in 1966, became a national park in 1979, and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.