Sea Heart

Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder got me thinking about some of my own items that I have collected that might inspire wonder. My family has been going to Ocracoke Island in North Carolina since I was little and over the years I have collected tons of shells and other items that I found on the beach like buoys and bottles. One of the most interesting things that I think I ever found was a strange kind of seed pod. It was about as bit as a half dollar and dark brown and shiny. I can remember being so intrigued by what this enormous seed could be and how it wound up on the beach. The locals told me that they call them sea hearts and that they float all the way from Brazil. As a kid, I was amazed at the idea that this seed had traveled so far and that I actually found something so rare. I actually still have the heart on my night stand as a kind of good luck charm.

I did some research and found that the sea heart is actually called a Entada gigas and they come from Central America. They are also referred to as monkey ladders because their long pods dangle from the trees. The pods can be as long as six feet. Millions of the seeds float through the ocean, sometimes for years, before washing ashore.

Map of common drift patterns.