Weird and wonderful members of the plant kingdom - sexy plants

The Coco-de-Mer palm produces the largest seed in the world and is endemic to only two of over one hundred Seychelle Islands. The plants have separate sexes and thus there are male trees and female trees. These large seeds may weigh up to fifty pounds and have historically been found floating in the Indian Ocean - this only happens when the inner nut has rotted, as otherwise the seed is too heavy to float. Historically this seed, which is shaped like a lady's bum, was sometimes found washed ashore on the coast of India and viewed as the female counterpart to the shankara (phallus) stones on Hindu alters and as a result was highly prized and used as a medicine and - of course - aphrodisiac. The seeds are very rare and the fruit, which requires seven years to mature and a further two years to germinate, is sometimes also referred to as the sea coconut, double coconut, coco fesse, or Seychelles nut as well s the no longer used archaic botanical name, Lodoicea callipyge in which callipyge is from Greek words meaning 'beautiful rump'. The myth about its origin is that it grew on an island at the bottom of the Indian Sea, because it was so rarely seen.

The Stinkhorn Fungus is a truly ghastly-smelling plant that attracts flies to its spore-laden, slimy head, thus increasing the odds of its spores being dispersed to new habitats. The fruiting body can appear almost overnight, and the smell, like rotting eggs, can be picked up over a quarter of a mile away! The swollen head or cap is coated with a black, putrid mass of spore slime that attracts blow flies and flesh flies. Because of its remarkable resemblance to a penis, this species is named in Latin, Phallus impudicus, which means impudent or shameless phallus.

Coco de Mer photograph by LindaH, used under a creative commons attribution licence