The Vallée de Mai is one of the most extraordinary and mysterious places in the Seychelles. It is a prehistoric palm forest hidden in the heart of Praslin that has survived almost untouched since ancient times. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is the only place in the world where the legendary coco de mer grows in abundance. For centuries this palm's huge, curious seed, the largest in the plant kingdom, fuelled legends of underwater trees and forbidden fruit.
Walking under the canopy of its giant palms feels almost magical. The light filters through in shades of green, the air is humid and cool, and the silence is broken only by rustling leaves and the call of the Seychelles black parrot, an endemic bird that lives only here. The forest holds all six of the archipelago's native palm species and unique wildlife, and it feels like travelling to a lost world from before humans arrived.
This guide covers the Vallée de Mai from a practical angle. It explains how to visit, which trails to choose, how much admission costs and what to look for to spot the coco de mer and the black parrot. It also explains why this forest fascinated explorers, some of whom came to believe it was the biblical Garden of Eden. For anyone travelling to Praslin, the Vallée de Mai is a must-see and one of the great natural treasures of the Seychelles.
The Vallée de Mai owes its fame to the coco de mer. For centuries this enormous seed washed up on the shores of the Indian Ocean and nobody knew where it came from. People believed it grew on an underwater tree, hence its name. It was only in the 18th century that the French discovered the palm grew only on Praslin, in this forest. Coveted and exploited, the valley was eventually protected, becoming a reserve in 1966, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. General Gordon even believed it was the Garden of Eden. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The country's second island and its cluster of reserves: here, in the Vallée de Mai, grows the coco de mer, and on the neighbouring islands pioneering conservation in the Indian Ocean was born.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The Vallée de Mai is, above all, a survivor. It is one of the very few places on the planet where a forest of endemic palms has been preserved almost exactly as it was in prehistoric times, before humans ever set foot on the islands. When the first settlers reached the Seychelles in the 18th century, much of Praslin was covered by these palm forests. Logging and fires cut them back drastically, but the Vallée de Mai stayed fairly safe, tucked away in a corner of the island's interior.
This forest is a remnant of the original natural world of the Seychelles' granite islands. They form a microcontinent that broke away from Gondwana, the ancient supercontinent that joined India, Madagascar and Africa, tens of millions of years ago. Isolated in the middle of the Indian Ocean, it developed its own flora and fauna, which evolved with no contact with the rest of the world. The Vallée de Mai is home to six species of endemic palm, led by the extraordinary coco de mer, along with wildlife that is just as unusual.
That is why walking through the valley feels a little like travelling back in time. Visitors step into an ecosystem that shows what the vegetation of these islands looked like millions of years ago. This almost untouched prehistoric authenticity gives the Vallée de Mai exceptional scientific and natural value. It was recognised in 1983, when UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site, one of only two sites in the Seychelles with that status.
For centuries, the coco de mer was one of the great mysteries of the natural world. Its huge double-lobed seeds washed up on beaches in the Maldives, India, Indonesia and around the Indian Ocean, carried by currents from somewhere no one knew. Since nobody had ever seen the plant that produced them, people believed they grew on a mysterious tree at the bottom of the sea. That is where the name comes from: 'coco de mer', the coconut of the sea. The mystery gave rise to all kinds of legends.
Its rarity and its curious shape, which recalls the lower half of the human body, made it a highly prized object loaded with symbolism. People credited it with magical, medicinal and aphrodisiac powers, and the seeds sold for astronomical sums at the courts of Asia and Europe. Kings, emperors and sultans had them set in gold and silver like treasures. In the Maldives, anyone who found a coco de mer had to hand it over to the sultan or face death. The mystery of its origin only added to its value and its legend.
The mystery was solved in the 18th century. When French explorers reached Praslin in 1768, during the Marion du Fresne expedition, they found that the famous seeds did not come from the sea or from any underwater tree. They came from the palms growing in the island's forests, in what is now the Vallée de Mai. Once people knew the coco de mer grew on land and could be harvested, its price collapsed. The fascination stayed, though: it is still the botanical symbol of the Seychelles and one of the wonders of the plant kingdom.
The almost supernatural aura of the Vallée de Mai and the coco de mer reached its most famous moment in 1881. That year the British general Charles George Gordon visited. Known as 'Gordon of Khartoum', he was one of the best-known figures of the British Empire. Gordon was a deeply religious and somewhat eccentric man, and the Praslin forest made such an impression on him that he came up with an unusual theory: the Vallée de Mai was nothing less than the biblical Garden of Eden.
Gordon argued that this isolated, lush prehistoric forest matched the description of the earthly paradise in Genesis. He went further still. In his view, the coco de mer, with its suggestively shaped seed and its male catkin, was the real 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil', and its seed was the true 'forbidden fruit' that tempted Adam and Eve. He even produced drawings and botanical and theological arguments to back up his idea.
Gordon's theory had no scientific basis at all and is remembered today as a curiosity. Still, it shows the effect this place had on 19th-century visitors: the feeling of standing before something primeval, unique and almost magical. The 'Garden of Eden' legend has stuck to the Vallée de Mai for good, and guides tell the story to visitors as they walk through the forest of giant palms.
The value of the coco de mer nearly wiped out the forests that produced it. During the colonial era, the seeds were collected and exported heavily, and Praslin's palm forests suffered from logging, fires and pressure from plantations. By the early 20th century, the area of coco de mer forest had shrunk drastically, and the Vallée de Mai was one of the last well-preserved pockets of that original ecosystem.
In the 20th century, people realised that an irreplaceable treasure was being lost, and this led to the valley being protected. It was declared a nature reserve in 1966, and its management turned towards conservation and research instead of exploitation. International recognition came in 1983, when UNESCO added the Vallée de Mai to the World Heritage List. UNESCO recognised its endemic palm forest, unique in the world, with the coco de mer as its flagship species and the forest as a refuge for the Seychelles black parrot.
The job of looking after the valley went to the Seychelles Islands Foundation (SIF). The foundation also manages the country's other World Heritage Site, the remote Aldabra Atoll. The SIF protects the forest, controls invasive species and monitors the endemic wildlife, especially the black parrot. It also manages tourist visits, and the admission fees help fund conservation. Thanks to this management, the Vallée de Mai has gone from an exploited resource to a model of conservation.
Today the Vallée de Mai is one of the most highly rated natural attractions in the Seychelles and a must for anyone visiting Praslin. Every year, thousands of travellers walk its trails to marvel at the coco de mer, look for the elusive black parrot and take in the prehistoric atmosphere of a forest that seems to belong to another world. Together with the island's beaches, it is the main reason to include Praslin on a trip to the archipelago.
Beyond tourism, the valley is still a sanctuary for science and conservation. It is home to the six endemic palms of the Seychelles, the black parrot, geckos, chameleons, endemic snails and even one of the smallest frogs in the world. The Seychelles Islands Foundation keeps a close eye on this ecological balance. Fighting invasive species and dealing with the effects of climate change are ongoing challenges in preserving this unique ecosystem.
The Vallée de Mai captures the essence of the Seychelles' relationship with nature. This small country has understood that its greatest treasure is its irreplaceable biodiversity, and it has chosen to protect it. The forest that once kept the secret of the coco de mer, and that inspired dreams of underwater trees and the Garden of Eden, still stands in the heart of Praslin. It is a living piece of prehistory and a symbol of the commitment to conservation that makes the Seychelles admired around the world.
