Vallee de Mai is a nature reserve and registered as UNESCO World Heritage Site way back in the year 1983 but was officially declared as a nature reserve on April 18, 1966. The nature reserve is located in Praslin Island in Seychelles. The nature reserve is indeed consisting of well-preserved and maintained palm forest. As a matter of fact, there are endemic or unique palm including the popular Coco De Mer and other five palms are listed to be endemic too. The Coco de Mer is said to have the largest seeds of any plant in the whole world. The leaves that grow in Coco de Mer is 6 meters wide and 14 meters long.
Vallee de Mai is also rich in bird life like Seychelles Black parrot and other animals like mammals, crustaceans and reptiles.
The entrance of the nature reserve is very alive and very astonishing. The palm trees are everywhere of various kinds. They have different sizes of their leaves and length of it. The birds are flying everywhere and also have waterfalls to bathe at.
Coco de Mer is the main attraction of the park and as mentioned early is an endemic tree with gigantic leaves and other palm species were as same as big with the Coco de Mer with small or big differences. The palm trees are strong in storms and very stable even the deadliest typhoons. It is said the palms’ age is over 200 years. Not really exactly but the reason of having a creature to be big is because of its environmental comfort.
The giant leaves that the palms have can be used when its raining that make them every people’s giant umbrellas. The trees are very famous at Vallee de Mai and said that the nuts of the palm can weigh 20 kilograms each.