Largest leaf of its kind grown in Eden Project biome, a love story

 

The Coco de Mer: Writing With the World’s Most Seductive Seed

There are plants we admire, and there are plants that haunt us.

The coco de mer belongs to the second kind.

Native only to the Seychelles, Lodoicea maldivica grows unlike anything else on Earth. Its seeds are the largest in the plant kingdom—curved, weighty, and shaped in ways that have stirred the human imagination for centuries. Sailors once believed they grew on underwater trees, drifting up from the ocean floor like offerings from a hidden world. Others saw in their form the echo of human desire and called them sacred, dangerous, forbidden.

The leaves are no less extraordinary. At the Eden Project in Cornwall, one coco de mer leaf has stretched over four metres, and it may reach ten. To stand beneath one is to feel small, as though the plant itself belongs to a scale of life larger than ours.

This is more than a tree. It is myth in living form.

And it is the perfect muse for your writing.

Writing Invitation

1. The Leaf That Speaks

Give the coco de mer leaf a voice. Imagine it whispering in the humid air of the rainforest dome.

• What secrets does it carry?
• Does it dream of escape, or does it revel in its slow expansion?
• What does it think of the people who come to stare at it?

2. The Forbidden Seed

For centuries, kings, priests, and travellers coveted this seed. Some worshipped it as a charm of fertility, others feared it as a symbol of lust and ruin.

• Write the tale of someone who discovers a coco de mer washed ashore.
• Do they hide it, worship it, sell it, or keep it close as a lover?

3. A New Myth

Imagine the future, when the last coco de mer survives in secret. Around it, new myths form—stories of healing, of eternal love, of forbidden power.

• Who guards it?
• Who risks everything to find it?
• What happens when it is finally touched?

4. Metaphor and Desire

The coco de mer has always been more than itself. It is desire carved into seed and leaf.

• Use it as a metaphor.
• Write of hunger, of survival, of longing.
• Let the plant become a mirror for human passion and fragility.

Reflection

When you write with the coco de mer, you’re not just describing a plant. You’re entering into its mythology—the weight of centuries of desire, curiosity, and awe.

Read your words aloud. See what shape the plant took in your imagination. Was it a god, a lover, a survivor, a trickster?

And remember: the coco de mer is still alive, still growing. Its story isn’t finished. Neither is yours.