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Drift seeds (also sea beans) and drift fruits are seeds and fruits adapted for long-distance dispersal by water. Most are produced by tropical trees, and they can be found on distant beaches after drifting thousands of miles through
ocean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, s ...
s. This method of propagation has helped many species of plant such as the
coconut
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...
colonize and establish themselves on previously barren islands. Consequently, drift seeds and fruits are of interest to scientists who study these currents.
In botanical terminology, a drift fruit is a kind of
diaspore
Diaspore , also known as diasporite, empholite, kayserite, or tanatarite, is an aluminium oxide hydroxide mineral, α-AlO(OH), crystallizing in the orthorhombic system and isomorphous with goethite. It occurs sometimes as flattened crystals, bu ...
Caesalpinia major
''Caesalpinia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. Historically, membership within the genus has been highly variable, with different publications including anywhere from 70 to 165 species, depending largely on the inclusion o ...
'' – yellow nickernut
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Carapa
''Carapa'' is a genus of flowering plants in the mahogany family, Meliaceae. These are trees up to 30 meters tall occurring in tropical South America, Central America,Hogan, C. M. 2008Isthmian-Atlantic moist forests.Encyclopedia of Earth, World ...
Entada gigas
''Entada gigas'', commonly known as the monkey-ladder, sea bean, cœur de la mer or sea heart, is a species of flowering liana in the pea family, Fabaceae of the Mimosa subfamily, which is often raised to family rank (Mimosaceae). They are nati ...
'' – seaheart, (New World tropics)
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Entada rheedii
''Entada rheedii'', commonly known as African dream herb or snuff box sea bean, and as the cacoon vine in Jamaica, is a large woody liana or climber of the Mimosa Family (Mimosaceae). The vine can grow as long as 120 meters (393.7 feet). Their s ...
'' – snuff box sea bean, from the tropics of the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
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Erythrina fusca
''Erythrina fusca'' is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is known by many common names, including purple coraltree, gallito, bois immortelle, bucayo, and the more ambiguous "bucare" and "coral bean". ''E. fusca'' ...
'' – bucayo (pantropical)
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Erythrina variegata
''Erythrina variegata'', commonly known as tiger's claw or Indian coral tree, is a species of '' Erythrina'' native to the tropical and subtropical regions of eastern Africa, the Indian subcontinent, northern Australia, and the islands of the In ...
'' – tiger claw (Old World tropics)
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Mucuna
''Mucuna'' is a genus of around 100 accepted species of climbing lianas (vines) and shrubs of the family Fabaceae: tribe Phaseoleae, typically found in tropical forests.
The leaves are trifoliolate, alternate, or spiraled, and the flowers are pe ...
Ormosia
''Ormosia'' is a genus of legumes (family Fabaceae). The more than 100 living species, mostly trees or large shrubs, are distributed throughout the tropical regions of the world, some extending into temperate zones, especially in East Asia. A fe ...
'' spp. – horse-eye bean, from the tropics
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Terminalia catappa
''Terminalia catappa'' is a large tropical tree in the leadwood tree family, Combretaceae, native to Asia, Australia, the Pacific, Madagascar and Seychelles. Common names in English include country almond, Indian almond, Malabar almond, sea almon ...
'' – tropical almond, from the tropics of Asia
Sources of drift fruits
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Barringtonia asiatica
''Barringtonia asiatica'' (fish poison tree, putat or sea poison tree) is a species of ''Barringtonia'' native to mangrove habitats from islands of the Indian Ocean in the west to tropical Asia and islands of the western Pacific Ocean. It is g ...
'' – box fruit, from
Polynesia
Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
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Cocos nucifera
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the f ...
'' – coconut, from the tropics
* ''
Grias cauliflora
''Grias cauliflora'', the anchovy pear,"anchovy pear" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 378. (also called the river pear) is a fruit native to Jamaica, Central America, ...
'' – anchovy pear, from the
tropics
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in
the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...
of the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
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Heritiera littoralis
''Heritiera littoralis'', commonly known as the looking-glass mangrove or tulip mangrove, is a mangrove tree in the family Malvaceae native to coastal areas of eastern Africa, Asia, Melanesia and northern Australia. The common name refers to the ...
'' – puzzle fruit, from
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
Seychelles
Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...
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Manicaria saccifera
''Manicaria'' is a palm genus which is found in Trinidad, Central and South America. It contains two recognized species:
#''Manicaria martiana'' Burret – Colombia, northwestern Brazil
#''Manicaria saccifera'' Gaertn. – Central America, Trin ...
'' – sea coconut, from
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
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Pandanus
''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with some 750 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. The greatest number of species are found in Madagascar and Malaysia. Common names ...
'' spp. – screw pines, from the
Old World
The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...
tropics
Research
Enthusiasts founded an annual convention in 1996, the International Sea-bean Symposium, dedicated to the display, study, and dissemination of information concerning drift seeds and other
flotsam
In maritime law, flotsam'','' jetsam'','' lagan'','' and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage. A shipwreck is defined as the rema ...