he considered as the forbidden fruit due to its reputed aphrodisiac quality), are all of Seychelles' endemic palm species found together. His observation was that the peculiar suggestive shape of its fruits was to have "caused the plague of our forefathers in the Garden of Eden". His observation was contested by another writer H. Watley Estridge who pointed out to Gordon that the thick husk of the fruit was impossible to have been bitten through by Eve, to which Gordon had no plausible answer. The endemic black parrot almost exclusively nests in the dead standing trunks of this palm. History The park was an undisturbed virgin forest until the 1930s. The locale got the status of Nature Reserve under the Wild Birds Protection (Nature Reserves) Regulation S. I. 27/1696, on 18 April 1966. This was followed by changing the status to a National Park for better conservation and preservation actions under the National Parks and Nature Conservancy Act (Cap. 159) S.I. No. 57 of 1979, Praslin National Park (Designation) Order of 1979, and the Cocooode- Management Decree 1978. Inscribed by UNESCO in 1983 under Criterion (vii), (viii),(ix), and (x), Vallée de Mai is one of the organization's smallest natural World Heritage Sites. Flora The park is the habitat for endemic coco-de-mer, which is reported as the "flagship species of global significance" growing to a height of . It is fan-shaped with leaves long and wide, and its petioles (stems) are long. The tree bears the largest double nut with the largest seed, among the species of the plant biodiversity found in the world; the weight of its largest fruit was . This tree is made up of stilt roots and has its canopy formed by leaves. The roots and the trunk are not easily distinguishable and they bear fruits of round and oval shape. There are five other endemic palm species; millionaire's salad (Deckenia nobilis), thief palm (Phoenicophorium borsigianum), Seychelles stilt palm (Verschaffeltia splendida) latanier millepattes (Nephrosperma vanhoutteanum) and latanier palm (Roscheria melanochaetes). These six species of palms are not only unique to this reserve but also to the Seychelles, and are not found anywhere else in the Indian Ocean in its pristine ancient state of evolution. The forest is dense with Pandanus screw palms and broad leaf trees. Chrysobalanus icaco Cocoplum is also reported. The aesthetic beauty of this natural palm forest is a grand display of an array