Florida Sea Beans: Hamburger Beans, Sea Pearls, and More

Hamburger Beans

Sea Purse

Sea Pearls

Sea Pearls (Nickernuts) in Fresh Pod

Sea Almonds

Coin Vine Seeds

Blister Pods

Bristly Porcupine Seed

African Oil Palm Seed

Antidote Vine Seed

Sea Coconuts

Sea Coconuts in Pod

Tropical Walnuts

Australian Pinecones

Crabwood Seed Pod

Mahoe Seed

Overcup Oak Acorn

Screw Pine Seed

Thorns and Protrusions of Tropical Trees

Sea Hearts

Ruddy Turnstone beside Coconut

Fibrous Coconut

Mora oleifera – Largest Seed Embryo

Florida’s Atlantic coast is an excellent place to find sea beans, because the Gulf Stream carries the seeds north from the tropics.  One of my favorite sea beans is the hamburger bean – it looks just like a mini-hamburger!  The cute sea purse is also known as the saddle bean, and can be polished to make beautiful jewelry.  Sea Pearls are gray, and are used worldwide for medicine, jewelry, and as marbles.  The Sea Almond is one of our most common drift seeds; it is especially abundant in Fall.  The coin vine has seeds that resemble pennies.  The Blister Pod is bumpy because there are air pockets inside the bean.  The rare prickly porcupine seed is named for its spiny appearance.  African oil palm seeds are harvested from plantations in Costa Rica to produce cooking oil.  Antidote vine seeds are members of the squash family.  Sea coconuts are the size of golf balls and look like coconuts inside.  The mother palms grow in immense numbers at the mouth of the Amazon.  Tropical walnuts look very similar to our North American walnuts.  Australian pinecones are very tiny and can even drop locally from trees in Florida (the mother plant is not a pine, but a member of the casuarina family).  Crabwood seeds are especially distinctive for their triangular appearance.  Mahoe seeds are from trees in the hibiscus (mallow) family.  Overcup oak acorns are from a tree known as the Swamp Oak (the cup of the acorn almost entirely covers the seed).  Screw pine seeds are sometimes used as a paintbrush.  Sometimes you can get lucky and find corky or hard thorns and protrusions from tropical trees in the sea wrack.  Sea hearts are always a favorite of everyone, and sometimes lots of coconuts can be found washed up on the sand.  It is really fun to walk on the beach, because you never know what you will see!  Click on any of the above pictures to enlarge. 

More info on sea beans is at:  http://www.seabean.com/   An excellent guidebook on sea beans is “Sea-Beans from the Tropics:  A Collector’s Guide to Sea-Beans and Other Tropical Drift on Atlantic Shores” by Ed Perry IV and John V. Dennis, original print 2003.  An annual International Sea-Bean Symposium is held in Cocoa Beach, Florida, every other October.  More info is at:  http://www.seabean.com/symposium/