Drift seed

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 currents. This method of propagation has helped many species of plant such as the coconut 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, and drift seeds and fruits are disseminules.

Sources of drift seeds

Drift seeds of three legume species found at Kanda on the southern Mozambique coast in May 2004:
1. Snuff box sea bean (Entada rheedii)
2. Grey nickernut (Caesalpinia bonduc)
3. a,b Colour forms of ox-eye beans (Mucuna gigantea)

Caesalpinia bonduc – grey nickernut
Caesalpinia major – yellow nickernut
Carapa guianensis – crabwood (New World tropics)
Entada gigas – seaheart, (New World tropics)
Entada rheedii – snuff box sea bean, from the tropics of the Indian Ocean
Erythrina fusca – bucayo (pantropical)^[1]
Erythrina variegata – tiger claw (Old World tropics)^[1]
Mucuna spp. – ox-eye bean, hamburger seed, deer-eye bean
Lathyrus japonicus – beach pea (circumboreal and Argentina)
Ormosia spp. – horse-eye bean, from the tropics
Terminalia catappa – tropical almond, from the tropics of Asia^[2]

Sources of drift fruits

Barringtonia asiatica – box fruit, from Polynesia
Cocos nucifera – coconut, from the tropics
Grias cauliflora – anchovy pear, from the tropics of the Americas
Heritiera littoralis – puzzle fruit, from Southeast Asia
Lodoicea maldivica – coco de mer, from the Seychelles
Manicaria saccifera – sea coconut, from South America
Pandanus spp. – screw pines, from the Old World 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.^[3]

Drift seeds and drift fruits