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Plants & Man on the Seychelles Coast: A Study in Historical Biogeography

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Among the last islands to be discovered by man were the Seychelles - an isolated archipelago in the Indian Ocean 600 miles northeast of Madagascar. Thus the transformation of a completely wild to a largely tame landscape has been compressed into the scant two hundred years since these geologically unique granitic islands were first settled in 1770. Reconstructing this change, Dr. Sauer presents an historical account of the islands' coastal vegetaton and the shaping of its distribution patterns by natural enviroment and human activities.

Of all oceanic islands, the Seychelles may have had the longest time for vegetaton to develop by purely natural immigration and evolutionary processes. Professor Sauer traces his postulated list of over fifty aboriginal plant species mainly to arrival by regular, long-range sea dispersal. Historical plant introductions have more than doubled the number of coastal species, and he attributes nearly all of these plant immigrants to deliberate transfer from Mauritius.

Dr. Sauer's conclusions regarding the processes by which the Seychelles vegetation were derived is preceded first by an introductory sketch of the islands' natural setting. He then carefully traces the history of human intervention from obscure beginnings to the present. The historical account is strongly influenced by Professor Sauer's conviction that the interactions of plants and man are of tremendous importance to both natural and cultural history. Special consideration is given to the origin of the coconut, the rise of coconut plantations, their present domination both of the islands' economy and landscape, and the dangers inherent in a near monoculture being practiced today [circa 1967].

Present distribution patterns are characterized by photographs, transects, and maps of sample areas. Species distributions are given in detail and then generalized on the basis of both physiognomic classification and of natural and artificial vegetation types.
--- excerpt from book's dustjacket